"There is no 300 taels of silver buried here" — Phrase of the Week
Former official denies using disaster relief funds to buy 2.3 million yuan earrings
Our phrase of the week is: "There is no 300 taels of silver buried here" (此地无银三百两 cǐ dì wú yín sān bǎi liǎng)
Context
Seventeen-year-old actress Huang Yang Tiantian (黄杨钿甜) sparked controversy after posting a selfie on May 11 wearing a pair of expensive luxury earrings.
In the post she said she was preparing for her early 18th birthday coming-of-age ceremony, and had borrowed the earrings from her mother.
But this wasn’t just any jewellery. From British luxury brand Graff, part of its 'Passion' range and set with emeralds, the earrings were estimated to cost 2.3 million yuan (around $320,000 USD).
It was this price tag, and the flaunting of such wealth, that sent the image viral and pushed the relatively unknown actress to the top of trending lists.
The story gained further traction when netizens revealed that Huang’s father, Yang Wei (杨伟), is a retired low-ranking civil servant. Someone who should not be able to afford such luxury.
Yang reportedly worked for the local government in Ya’an (雅安), Sichuan Province, from 2011 to 2017. Between 2015 and 2017, he oversaw the distribution of reconstruction funds following the city’s devastating 2013 earthquake—a 7.0-magnitude disaster that killed 196 and injured over 11,000.
Over the years, concerns about corruption in post-quake relief efforts had grown, with billions allegedly misused. Within this context, many speculated that Yang and his family had enriched themselves through diverted public funds.
As scrutiny intensified, Yang issued a statement denying all allegations. He claimed the earrings were fake, said he’d been mistaken for someone else with the same name, and denied he had been involved in misappropriating disaster relief funds.
However, it soon emerged that Yang had, in the midst of the scandal, transferred full ownership of his biotech company to a third party, changed its business scope to cosmetics, and renamed it—moves that only deepened public suspicion.
As one commenter put it, quoting a well-known idiom:
Why did he change the company's name, legal representative, and business scope immediately following the public uproar? Why choose to do it at this exact moment — is this the same as "there is no 300 taels of silver buried here"?
为何在舆论起来之后忙着把公司的名称、法人以及经营范围都变更了？为什么偏偏在这个时候选择变更，这不是此地无银三百两吗？.
Wèihé zài yúlùn qǐlái zhīhòu mángzhe bǎ gōngsī de míngchēng, fǎrén yǐjí jīngyíng fànwéi dōu biàngēng le? Wèishéme piānpiān zài zhège shíhou xuǎnzé biàngēng, zhè búshì cǐ dì wú yín sān bǎi liǎng ma?
And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.
What it means
The phrase “there is no 300 taels of silver buried here” (此地无银三百两) is an idiom used to describe situations where someone’s attempt to deny or conceal something is so clumsy or obvious that it only draws more attention to what they’re hiding.
The earliest known written record of the phrase appears in The Eavesdropping Records of Longtu (龙图耳录), a Qing dynasty collection of short stories attributed to the storyteller, Shi Yukun (石玉昆). Shi also authored The Three Heroes and Five Gallants (三侠五义), the source of another well-known idiom and previous Phrase of the Week.
The stories in The Eavesdropping Records of Longtu are a collection of performance scripts compiled from oral storytelling traditions during the reign of the Qing Emperor Jiaqing (嘉庆, 1796–1820).
One story tells of a man named Zhang San (张三) who, after years of hard work, managed to save 300 taels of silver. Fearing his hard-earned silver would be stolen, he locked it in a chest and buried it deep in the ground behind his house.
But, he was still worried it might be stolen. So he came up with what he thought was a clever idea: he posted a sign on the wall next to where the silver was buried, which read:
“There is no 300 taels of silver buried here”
此地无银三百两
cǐ dì wú yín sān bǎi liǎng
A neighbor, Wang Er (王二), noticed this strange behavior and, curious, snuck over that night. After reading the sign, he dug up the chest and stole the silver. To cover his tracks, he refilled the hole and left his own note:
“Neighbor Wang Er did not steal it”
隔壁王二不曾偷
gébì Wáng Èr bùcéng tōu
The next morning, Zhang San saw the new note and realized, after all, his attempt to hide his silver had led to him losing it.
In modern Chinese, this common idiom describes actions which are meant to cover something up but end up further revealing the truth.
Just like Yang Wei’s suspiciously detailed denials and hasty changes to company records.
But instead of 300 taels of silver, he’s trying to hide the 2.3 million emerald earrings, and the earnings that enabled him to afford them.
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.
Read more about how this story is being discussed in the Chinese media in this week’s RealTime Mandarin.
