"Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it" — Phrase of the Week
Live-stream influencer is losing his most valuable asset
Our phrase of the week is: “an abrupt end” (法不责辉 fǎ bù zé huī)
Context
One of China’s most famous livestream hosts, Dong Yuhui (董宇辉), is facing a consumer backlash.
In early April, a CCTV reporter exposed a health supplement sold by Dong called “Youthit” (优思益) — marketed as a premium Australian eye supplement made by a company called Yarra Vibe, priced at 293–434 yuan per bottle.
The reality was very different: made in China, and owned by a Chinese shell company registered at an Australian address that turned out to be a car repair warehouse on the outskirts of Melbourne.
Dong Yuhui’s channel, Time with Hui (与辉同行), was Youthit’s single largest sales platform with an estimated 40% of total sales, worth 10–25 million yuan ($1.4–3.4M USD).
In response to the controversy, Dong’s team was slow to respond, issuing three statements that didn’t address the problem.
And this wasn’t a one-off. Youthit was Dong’s third fake product controversy this year. Each time, Dong has used carefully worded language to distance himself from the offending product, and any liability.
That’s a problem for someone who built his reputation as a “cultural figure” (文化人). His fans trust him, and they pay a premium for what he promotes because of it.
Now that trust is being eroded.
And there’s a new idiomatic phrase to explain why:
Recently, the catchphrase “Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it” has gone viral.
A play on the old adage “the law does not punish the masses”, the four-character phrase highlights the seemingly untouchable status of Dong Yuhui and his team amidst a string of recent live-streaming controversies.
最近，”法不责辉”成了网络流行语。这四个字借用了老话”法不责众”的壳，指向了主播董宇辉及其团队在多起带货争议中的处境。
And with that, we have our Phrase of the Week.
What it means
“Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it” (法不责辉) is our translation of a new play on the classical Chinese idiom, “the law does not punish the multitude” (法不责众).
Breaking the meaning down: “law” (法), “does not” (不), “punish” (责), “masses” (众).
But in this new version, the final character “the multitude” (众) is replaced with Hui (辉) from Dong Yuhui’s name (董宇辉).
The original, “the law does not punish the multitude” (法不责众), traces back to the Qing Dynasty novel, The Little Five Heroes (小五义), by Shi Yukun (石玉昆), a storyteller and writer best known for his contributions to the chivalric fiction genre.
For hardcode Phrase of the Week fans, Shi Yukun is the originator of our two previous Phrases: "Arrive with excitement, leave in disappointment" (乘兴而来，败兴而归), and "There is no 300 taels of silver buried here" (此地无银三百两).
In one scene of The Little Five Heroes, a warlord forbids everyone in a village from drinking alcohol, warning that anyone in a caught will be beheaded. So someone comes up with a plan: first get fifty people to have a round, then recruit another fifty for a second round. The logic being the warlord can’t possibly execute all 100 of them. So everyone drinks, and walks away as if nothing happened.
In Chapter 38, the crowd reaches their collective conclusion:
“Everyone talked it over — the law does not punish the multitude — and they all left.”
大家一议论，法不责众，全走了。
This scene reflects the realities of imperial governance at that time.
Feudal law was often enacted against the interests of ordinary people. But if the authorities tried to punish large groups en masse, they risked open revolt. So officials often went for a pragmatic middle ground: let the crowd off, and make an example of the ringleader. So the many escape and the few at the top are punished.
It’s also worth noting that the “law” here has nothing to do with the legal system. It’s closer to a popular folk wisdom — an ordinary person’s understanding of how rules and consequences actually work.
In modern Chinese it can describe any situation where a large number of people break the rules or fail to meet a standard, but nobody ends up being seriously dealt with. In other words: when everyone is doing it, it becomes harder to hold any one person to account.
The original describes a crowd too large to punish, but the newly coined phrase describes one man who keeps escaping accountability — Dong Yuhui. Because, apparently, the rules simply do not apply to him.
And in China’s internet culture, that is damaging. Which is why we translate this new idiom, “the law does not punish the Hui” (法不责辉), as “Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it.”
But for how long?
P.S — Want to read more about how this story is being discussed in the Chinese media?
Tune into this week’s RealTime Mandarin.
And if you want to go deeper into Dong Yuhui’s career, I have great news for you!
We’ve been tracking him since the beginning:
Made a name for himself in a high-profile spat with a competitor in August 2022
Got the top job at East Buy following a fall-out with the CEO in December 2023
With this latest development, could Dong Yuhui’s career be coming to an end?
My guess is this is the first hint at that.
Because when the Chinese internet invents critical idiom about influencers, it normally signals the beginning of the end.
As Austin Li found in 2021 with the invention of ‘Austin Li’s uncontrollable success’ (琦虎难下).
What are your thoughts?