Services and formalities

Going through formalities is 手续 shǒuxù, literally “the succession of hands” ⟶ what passes from hand to hand, the paperwork. The image is telling, even if I cannot guarantee it is where the word comes from. And you do not simply do a formality, you 办 bàn it: 办手续 bàn shǒuxù, 办签证 for a visa, 办卡 for a card, 办事 for everything else. The traditional character 辦 places strength, 力, between two 辛, which the 说文解字 Shuōwén jiězì reads as “two culprits arguing with each other”. I doubt the scribes had that in mind, but effort squeezed between two quarrels sums up a morning at the counter rather well.

The counter is 窗口 chuāngkǒu, “the opening of the window”. In front of it, you queue, 排队 páiduì (the word is on the page Social life), and the Chinese queue has changed a great deal: in a bank, a post office or an agency, you now start with 取号 qǔhào, taking a ticket from the machine, then you wait for the 叫号 jiàohào, the synthetic voice calling 请A015号到3号窗口办理, “number A015 to counter 3, please” (sentence 14). On the other hand, wherever there is no machine, 插队 chāduì, “to slip into the line”, remains a popular sport (sentence 17).

A bank is 银行 yínháng. 银 is the metal silver, and 行 is read háng here, the trading house, the guild, as in 行业 or 同行. Be careful: read xíng, it means “to walk”, and 银行 is no walk in the park. For centuries, China paid its large sums in weighed silver ingots, hence the name. Small change, on the other hand, was copper: that is 钱 qián. The 说文 defines it as a farming tool, a kind of spade. The link with money is not certain, but the very first Chinese coins were indeed shaped like little spades. Today you pay in 人民币 rénmínbì, “the people’s currency”, counted in 元 yuán in writing and in 块 kuài when speaking.

Still, you have to have some money on you. In ten years or so, China went from cash to 扫码 sǎomǎ, “to sweep the code” ⟶ to scan, and the 二维码 èrwéimǎ, literally “the two-dimensional code”, got stuck everywhere, right down to the vegetable seller’s stall (sentence 10). 微信支付 Wēixìn zhīfù and 支付宝 Zhīfùbǎo did the rest. For a long time, travellers without a Chinese account found themselves quite helpless (things have improved since these apps started accepting foreign cards). Keep a few notes all the same: the old man selling roasted sweet potatoes on the street corner does not always have a phone.

The post office, 邮局 yóujú, keeps the memory of the imperial relays: 邮 and 驿 yì were the stations where couriers changed horses. The word 驿站 came back with online shopping, in 菜鸟驿站 Càiniǎo yìzhàn, the pick-up points where you collect your parcels. 菜鸟, literally “the vegetable bird”, is the beginner, the rookie. That one of the country’s biggest logistics companies should be called “the newbie” never fails to amuse me. The parcel itself is a 快递 kuàidì, “a fast transmission”, and that is also what people call the delivery man.

A letter is 信 xìn. The 说文 breaks the character down into 人 “man” and 言 “speech” ⟶ a man who keeps his word, hence the first meaning: sincerity, trust. The messenger came later, then the message itself. Both meanings turn up everywhere: 信用卡, the credit card, is “the trust card”, but 信封 is the envelope, 短信 the text message and 信号 the phone signal. Confucius, asked what a government could do without, answered the army first, then food, but never trust: 民无信不立, which Couvreur translates as “if the people have no confidence in those who govern them, it is all over with them” (sentence 25, see Chapter 12 of the Analects of Confucius).

Before the 短信, a letter could take months. In 757, during the An Lushan rebellion, Du Fu is stuck in occupied Chang’an and writes 家书抵万金, “a letter from home is worth ten thousand pieces of gold” (sentence 23; for a more serene Du Fu, see Quatrain (Two orioles) by Du Fu). The expression 鸿雁传书, “the wild goose carries the letter”, comes from another story: held by the Xiongnu, the envoy Su Wu was said to be dead, until the day a Han envoy claimed the emperor had shot down a goose carrying a message from him on its leg. The goose was a ruse, but Su Wu was set free.

The mobile phone, 手机 shǒujī, is “the hand machine”, and the internet a net, 网: you “climb onto” it, 上网 shàngwǎng, and those who roam it are 网民, “the people of the net”. A plan is counted in 流量 liúliàng, “the rate of flow” ⟶ mobile data, and when the 话费 runs out, you are in 欠费, “in debt for charges”: the line is cut until the next 充值. Note that for the past ten years or so, a SIM card can only be opened under your real name, passport in hand (sentence 20, 实名制 is on the page Names and nationalities).

For everything else, you need papers, 证件 zhèngjiàn. In its simplified form, 证 combines speech 讠 and 正 “straight, just” ⟶ straight speech, what bears witness. The traditional 證 only had 登, for the sound, but the simplification happens to work. The identity card, 身份证 shēnfènzhèng, “the certificate of one’s position”, carries eighteen digits (the last one is sometimes an X) that give the region, the date of birth and the sex of its holder. But a paper without a red stamp is not worth much: 盖章 gàizhāng, “to cover with the seal”, is often the last step, and sometimes the longest. The Chinese have a word for these endless formalities, 繁文缛节, “abundant texts, overloaded rites”.

The police officer, 警察 jǐngchá, is “the one who alerts and examines”. You call them on 110 (报警 bàojǐng, “to report the alarm”), and you find them at the 派出所 pàichūsuǒ, “the office from which one is sent out”, the small neighbourhood police station (see also the page The city and its neighbourhoods). Be careful if you stay with friends rather than at a hotel: in a city, a foreigner must register there within twenty-four hours. The rule is an old one. The 史记 tells how the laws of Shang Yang had made the state of Qin so safe that 道不拾遗, “no one picked up what had fallen on the road” (sentence 24).

One of those laws punished any innkeeper who put up a traveller without a pass. When Shang Yang fell from favour and had to flee, he knocked at an inn on the border; the innkeeper, who did not recognise him, refused him a room: “Lord Shang’s law forbids it.” Shang Yang sighed that his own laws had turned against him. He did not have his papers.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order appears stroke by stroke, with the arrow showing the direction of the line.