“Kill the donkey when it’s done its job” — Phrase of the Week
Livestream e-commerce platform East Buy tried to downplay the success of its top influencer.
Our Phrase of the Week is: Kill the donkey when it’s done its job (卸磨杀驴 xièmò shālǘ).
The context
Chinese livestream e-commerce website East Buy (东方甄选 dōngfāng zhēnxuǎn) fired its CEO after he made comments angering fans of a top influencer on the platform.
Sūn Dōngxù 孙东旭, the company’s sacked CEO, came under fire when he backed a social media post insinuating the company’s star livestream seller, Dǒng Yǔhuī 董宇辉, was taking too much credit for the success of the company.
Now known at the “little post incident” (小作文事件), it was published on East Buy’s official account on 5 December ahead of an East Buy event to Jilin:
We are a team! Every piece of content is teamwork, with the livestreamer in front of the camera, the copywriting team, the camera team, and the editing team behind the scenes. Everyone works together to produce the content for every trip.
我们是一个团队哦！每一次小作文制作，都是主播在镜头前，背后是文案创作团队、拍摄团队、剪辑团队的小伙伴们，大家协作，才有了一篇篇专场小作文。
Wǒmen shì yíge tuánduì o! Měiyícì xiǎozuòwén zhìzuò, dōushì zhǔbō zài jìngtóu qián, bèihòu shì wén’àn chuàngzuò tuánduì, pāishè tuánduì, jiǎnjí tuánduì de xiǎohuǒbànmen, dàjiā xiézuò, cái yǒule yìpiānpiān zhuānchǎng xiǎozuòwén.
There was a huge backlash from fans. In the following five days the company lost 2 million followers on its main social media platform, Douyin, and its Hong Kong stock price fell by more than 22%.
By the 10th of December, the company had made no apology or comment. Dong decided not to turn up for a scheduled livestream on that day.
Sun Xudong, the company CEO, tried to calm public opinion in a live broadcast on 13 December. He first affirmed Dong’s contribution to the business, but also pointed out that he should not miss the live broadcast on the 10th. Sun also revealed Dong Yuhui’s income was more than what is reported online: tens of millions of yuan.
That made things worse.
By the 18th of December, East Buy said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Sun’s mishandling of the incident hurt the firm’s brand and reputation, and Michael Yu 俞敏洪 Yú Mǐnhóng, the chairman and founder of the parent company New Oriental, would take over as CEO.
The “little post incident” illustrates the precarious balancing act livestream platforms have with their influencers. Dong Yuhui is seen as the main person who has helped build East Buy.
So criticism of him is a betrayal, as one writer notes:
What people read from that post is not an objective description of the team’s division of labor. Rather, they focus on who wrote it and what their motivation was, which leads to a suspicion that this is “killing the donkey when it’s done its job”. After making great contributions, the hero is perceived to have achieved more than his master, so he is stabbed in the back by envious people who want to wipe out his contribution. This can easily spark outrage in Chinese society.
人们从这些话里读出来的，并不是对团队分工的客观描述，而是在分析和解读说话者的身份，这么说又出自什么动机，进而怀疑这是“卸磨杀驴”：当一个人立下汗马功劳之后，功高盖主，遭到嫉妒贤能的背刺，抹杀其贡献，在中国社会本来就极易引爆公众情绪
Rénmen cóng zhèxiē huà li dú chūlái de, bìng búshì duì tuánduì fēngōng de kèguān miáoshù, ér shì zài fēnxī hé jiědú shuōhuàzhě de shēnfèn, zhème shuō yòu chūzì shénme dòngjī, jìn’ér huáiyí zhèshì “xiè mò shā lǘ”: Dāng yígèrén lìxià hànmǎgōngláo zhīhòu, gōnggāogàizhǔ, zāodào jìdù xiánnéng de bèi cì, mǒshā qí gòngxiàn, zài zhōngguó shèhuì běnlái jiù jíyì yǐnbào gōngzhòng qíngxù.
And with that, we have our Phrase of the Week!
What it means
The four-character idiom, 卸磨杀驴 xiè mò shā lǘ, directly translates as “remove from the mill” (卸磨) to “kill the donkey” (杀驴). In other words, get rid of the animal as soon as it’s finished its job.
The phrase first appeared in Smoke Signal (狼烟 lángyān), a short story published in 1966 by Liú Shàotáng 刘绍棠.
Born in Hebei in 1936, Liu started his writing career at the age of 13 and is a well known writer of “Chinese rural style literature” (乡土文学), and a representative of the “Lotus Lake School” (荷花淀派) of writing during the 1940’s to 1980’s.
The original sentence where our phrase is found in Smoke Signal is:
I’m afraid that after returning to the army and conquering Pingshui County, he will have to kill the donkey.
只怕归队以后，打下萍水县城，他就得卸磨杀驴
zhǐ pà guīduì yǐhòu, dǎxià píngshuǐ xiànchéng, tā jiù dé xiè mò shā lǘ
The soon-to-be-killed “donkey” is the military leader who helped win that battle.
In the battle for survival in East Buy Dong Yuhui survived an attempt to downplay his role in the success of the company. And the CEO, Sun Dongxu, has fallen instead.
But Sun too is really just an employee who has also helped build the business, and like the donkey in Liu Shaotong’s Smoke Signal, has now been killed-off.
This seems to be a high-profile story of “an honest worker takes down a sinister CEO”, but judging from the ending, Sun Dongxu is just an employee (under Yu).
这似乎上演一出“老实打工人干翻阴险CEO”的高光故事，但从这结局看，孙东旭说到底也只是个打工人。
Zhè sìhū shàngyǎn yì chū “lǎoshí dǎgōng rén gànfān yīnxiǎn CEO” de gāoguāng gùshi, dàn cóng zhè jiéjú kàn, sūndōngxù shuōdàodǐ yě zhǐshì ge dǎgōngrén.
Andrew Methven is the author of Slow Chinese 每周漫闻, a resource to help learners of Chinese maintain and improve their language skills, and keep on top of the latest language trends in China. Read more.