“Shared in the good times, and the bad" — Phrase of the Week
Richad Liu changes his mind about who his “brothers” really are

Our phrase of the week is: “shared in the good times and the bad" (有福同享,有难同当 yǒu fú tóng xiǎng, yǒu nàn tóng dāng).
Context
The founder of one of China’s biggest internet businesses has been ridiculed online after a recording of one of his internal speeches was shared on social media.
Richard Liu (刘强东), the founder of JD.com, was delivering a speech to the management during a virtual meeting on May 24.
He was announcing changes to the company policy, including:
The company does not have a place for those who have poor performance and never work hard. These people will gradually be removed from the company.
Anyone who has poor performance for a long time and never works hard is not my brother.”
“业绩不好,又从来不拼搏的人,这家公司永远不能容忍,一个不能容忍,都会逐步通过各种手段全部淘汰出局。凡是长期业绩不好,从来不拼搏的人,不是我的兄弟。”
“Yèjì bùhǎo, yòu cónglái bù pīnbó de rén, zhèjiā gōngsī yǒngyuǎn bùnéng róngrěn, yígè bùnéng róngrěn, dōuhuì zhúbù tōngguò gèzhǒng shǒuduàn quánbù táotài chūjú. Fánshì chángqī yèjì bùhǎo, cónglái bù pīnbó de rén, búshì wǒ de xiōngdi.”
The phrase “my brother” is what triggered reactions.
Richard Liu, who also goes by the name “Brother Dong” (东哥), uses the “my brothers” phrase a lot in internal speeches.
He first said it in 2018, when he described all the employees of the company as “his brothers”, in response to rumors that JD was preparing for mass layoffs, promising that he would “never sack any one of his brothers”.
That put a stop to the rumors at the time, and it even became a popular meme.
But in his comments this week, Richard Liu appears to have changed his definition of what “my brother” means, which has drawn wide criticism:
When business is good, no one cares who counts as his brother. Richard Liu once said that he is not talking about people who slack off at work. For him, only those who share in happiness and hardship are true brothers.
However, his definition was intentionally or unintentionally ignored. The outside world sees JD.com as a company where everyone is Liu’s brother. With Liu using this phrase again and again, perhaps some people really do believe that it is the case.
在生意好做的时候,没人去计较到底谁算是兄弟。刘强东曾解释过,他所说的不是那种在公司混日子的人,有福同享有难同当才是真正的兄弟。然而,他的解释被有意无意忽略了,外界把京东看成一家兄弟文化弥漫的公司,在东哥的一声声兄弟里,没准真有人犯了迷糊。
Zài shēngyi hǎozuò de shíhou, méirén qù jìjiào dàodǐ shéi suànshì xiōngdi. Liúqiáng dōng céng jiěshìguò, tāsuǒ shuō de bùshì nà zhǒng zài gōngsī hùn rìzi de rén.
Yǒu fú tóng xiǎng yǒu nàn tóng dāng cái shì zhēnzhèng de xiōngdi. Rán'ér, tā de jiěshì bèi yǒuyì wúyì hūlüèle, wàijiè bǎ jīngdōng kànchéng yìjiā xiōngdi wénhuà mímàn de gōngsī, zài dōnggē de yìshēngshēng xiōngdi lǐ, méizhǔn zhēn yǒurén fànle míhu.
And with that we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.
What it means
“Those who share in happiness and hardship” is an eight-character idiom in Chinese.
The direct translation of the characters of the idiom are “have good fortune share together”, (有福同享) “have misfortune endure together” (有难同当).
The phrase is credited to Lǐ Bóyuán 李伯元, a writer, essayist, and poet of the late Qing dynasty. He died in 1906 at age of 39.
“Sharing in happiness and hardship” appears in his novel, Officialdom Unmasked (官场现形记 guānchǎng xiànxíng jì), which is set in the latter years of the Qing empire.
Officialdom Unmasked is a criticism of the ineptitude and corruption of the Qing government at that time.
The phrase is found in this passage:
There is one more thing: the Old Master once said, "We share in happiness and hardship."
Now the master has been promoted and made a fortune, but we, as family members, having supported him with our effort and money, didn't get anything out of it.
还有一件:从前老爷有过话,是“有福同享,有难同当”。现在老爷有得升官发财,我们做家人的出了力、赔了钱,只落得一个半途而废。
Háiyǒu yíjiàn: Cóngqián lǎoye yǒuguò huà, shì ‘yǒu fú tóng xiǎng, yǒu nàn tóng dāng’. Xiànzài lǎoye yǒude shēngguān fācái, wǒmen zuò jiārén de chūle lì, péile qián, zhǐ luòdé yígè bàntú'érfèi.
This is said by Jiang Fu 蒋福 who lent 3,000 yuan to the Old Master earlier in his career. But now the Old Master has become a powerful and wealthy official, he wants to get rid of Jiang Fu and the people who originally supported him.
It’s therefore apt that critics of Richard Liu use this phrase to comment on how he has changed his definition of “my brothers”. His change of mind means Liu can still keep his promise, and get rid of the people who he once called his “brothers”, because they no longer fit that description.
At a time when his company is struggling, the founder of JD is damaging trust and loyalty with his employees, which could make things even harder for his business.
So in this context, we translate this week’s Phrase of the Week as “shared in the good times, and the bad”.
Andrew Methven is the author of RealTime Mandarin, a resource to help you learn contemporary Chinese in context, and stay on top of the latest language trends in China.
Read more about how this story is being discussed in the Chinese media in this week’s RealTime Mandarin.