"Cutting corners" — Phrase of the Week
Hong Kong's deadly fire exposes contractor negligence
Our phrase of the week is: “cutting corners” (偷工减料 tōu gōng jiǎn liào).
Context
On November 26, a devastating fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court (宏福苑), a government housing estate in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district. The blaze swept through seven of the estate’s eight residential towers, killing at least 159 people and injuring dozens more.
The 31-storey towers had been undergoing a HK$330-million (US$42-million) renovation since July 2024, wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green safety netting.
Video footage of the fire shows flames racing up the scaffolding with incredible speed. It spread so rapidly that many elderly residents were trapped inside, unable to escape.
Within days, police had arrested a dozen people from the construction firm and management company responsible for the renovation on suspicion of gross negligence and manslaughter.
Residents say they’d been complaining about the construction company for months.
In media interviews, survivors of the disaster say they often saw construction workers smoking on site, and piles of loose (now believed to be flammable) netting were regularly left scattered across the compound. Others complained the renovation was overpriced and poorly done, using a well-known Chinese idiom to make their point:
“In practice, it is not uncommon for the contractor to cut corners on fire-retardant safety nets.”
在实践中，施工方对阻燃保护网”偷工减料”的情形并不鲜见。
And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.
What it means
“Cut corners” is the English translation of a common Chinese idiom. Breaking down the characters: “to do secretly” (偷 tōu), “work” (工 gōng), “to reduce, to cut” (减 jiǎn), “materials” (料 liào).
Together, the idiom literally means “skimp on workmanship and reduce materials.”
It originally referred specifically to merchants who secretly lowered product quality or reduced materials to maximize profits through dishonest means.
This idiom first appeared in the Qing Dynasty novel The Tale of Heroic Sons and Daughters (儿女英雄传) by Wen Kang (文康), a novelist and Manchu bannerman. He is best known for writing this novel, which is also one of the last major works of classical Chinese vernacular fiction before the genre’s decline in the late 19th century.
The idiom appears in Chapter 2:
“All the projects in this downstream area were carried out with shoddy, corner-cutting practices.”
这下游一带的工程，都是偷工减料作的。
This line appears in a context discussing infrastructure projects during the Qing Dynasty, reflecting the integrity problems that plagued construction during that period of rapid economic development.
The idiom captures the dual nature of cutting corners: both on the labour by ”skimping on workmanship” (偷工), doing less than required; and the materials by ”reducing materials” (减料), using less or inferior supplies.
It’s a vivid description of dishonest business practices where someone shortcuts the labour process and uses less or cheaper materials than promised, all while charging full price.
In modern usage, it’s expanded to mean doing work carelessly, cutting corners, or being lazy at work.
In the context of the deadly fire at Wang Fuk Court, it’s a serious indictment of the contractor renovating the compound who ignored complaints from residents and allegedly disregarded fire safety standards, using cheap materials to save money and cut corners.
Andrew Methven is the author of RealTime Mandarin, a resource which helps you bridge the gap to real-world fluency in Mandarin, stay informed about China, and communicate with confidence—all through weekly immersion in real news. Subscribe for free here.
