<What Does It Mean to Be a Good Person Today?《100 Principles of Character and Civility for Modern Life》

100 Principles of Character and Civility for Modern Life

What Does It Mean to Be a Good Person Today?

Fang Tianliang

An English adaptation of Xiandai Ren de 100 Tiao Wenming Zhunze

Prologue: I Held Up These Hundred Lines Like a Mirror

When the hundred principles were finally on the page, the first thing I did was turn them on myself.

The result was not flattering.

Have I, when exhausted or irritated, said the most cutting thing to the person closest to me? Have I, when no one was watching, taken a small shortcut I knew was wrong? When money and loyalty pulled in opposite directions, was I honest every time?

No.

Chinese tradition taught shendu: to behave, when you are alone, as you would if you were still seen. Western tradition taught self-examination and the keeping of promises. Few of us were ever walked, line by line, through what those ideas look like in a crowded, prosperous, and very loud life.

We learned how to compete, win, and accumulate. We were not always taught how to remain a decent person while doing so.

This book is not a lecture. It is not a list for scoring other people. It is a mirror. Before we point it at the world, I would like us to stand in front of it together.

No one is asked to score a hundred. The only question that matters is smaller:

Today, am I a little closer to being a good person than I was yesterday?

Opening Story: The Afternoon Without Cameras

On the afternoon of 29 December 2025, Zhengzhou was already cold. Tian Yiming, eighteen, was walking with his mother in Kangping Lake Park. He had taken leave from school under academic pressure. The outing was only for air.

Near the northeast gate, under a wooden bench, a white plastic bag sat slightly open. He drew it out. His mind went blank. Later the police counted 380,000 yuan in cash: an engagement gift just withdrawn from the bank—300,000 in unopened packets of new notes, 80,000 in loose bills.

That corner of the park had no working camera. Two girls were playing badminton in the distance. A bystander later said that if someone had simply picked up the bag and walked away, the police would have had almost nothing to follow.

Tian asked the two girls first. It was not theirs. He called 110.

When officers arrived and asked him to come to the station to give a statement, he refused. “What if the owner comes back and finds neither the money nor anyone who knows what happened? How desperate would that be?”

He waited beside the bench in wind that was already below freezing. Half an hour later a young man arrived, sweating, asking everyone about a white bag. Tian checked the details and called the officers again. The money was caili, the engagement gift still customary in many Chinese families, often both families’ savings at once. The owner later said that if it had vanished, two families would have been ruined.

Tian went home and told neither school nor friends. A week later his teacher saw the police notice on social media. Only then did the story travel.

Shendu is not a phrase for a classical exam. It is a winter afternoon without cameras, and a white bag that could have disappeared.

Who you are is who you are when no one is watching.

Part I. First, Govern Yourself: Honesty, Self-Command, and Conscience

The smallest unit of a moral life is still “I.” If that unit will not hold, knowledge and money cannot prop it up.

A daily lesson from the old books | Shendu

The old sentence about ten eyes and ten hands was not meant to make a person live in fear of being watched. It was meant to keep a line standing when the room is empty. The next ten principles are that line, written for now.

1. Do not do what you know is wrong merely because no one can see you.

Remember the afternoon without cameras. Tian could have walked away with the bag. He did not.

Self-checkout machines and unstaffed shops only delay discovery. They do not cancel the fact. A missed scan, a parcel in a locker that is not yours, a hand reaching for someone else’s phone in an empty sitting room: the amounts differ; the rule does not.

A Moment of Reflection

If this would never be found out, would I still do it?

2. When you have done wrong, admit it before you hunt for an excuse.

Late on 17 October 2010, in Quangang, Fujian, Mr. Zhu’s car struck Mr. Huang, fifty-seven, who had not used the zebra crossing. When the traffic police arrived, the injured man spoke first: “I didn’t cross on the lines. Let the driver go.” The driver cut him off: “I was doing sixty. Too fast. This is on me.” The next morning Zhu arrived with gifts and said again, before insurance was mentioned, that he should have slowed coming off the overpass.

How a court later divides fault is a separate question. That night, two people competed to say I may be in the wrong.

On a long-distance train—the ordinary way millions travel between cities in China—a man named Sun took a window seat that was not his. The woman who held the ticket was offered three choices: stand, take his seat, or go to the dining car. When the conductor came, Sun said he could not stand up and would like a wheelchair at the terminus. The country watched the video. Only then did he apologise. The sentence that would have ended it—I’m sorry, I sat in the wrong seat—was buried under excuses until it became a national farce.

An excuse is often not a lie. It is a half-sentence that shifts the blame. Admission is short: I was going too fast. I sat in the wrong seat.

A Moment of Reflection

When something breaks at home, do I say “that was me,” or “this is because of you”?

3. If you do not know, say you do not know. Do not pretend you do.

Journals distinguish fraud from honest error. The second is not knowing, at the time, that you did not know. Saying in public “we got this step wrong” has not weakened science. It has kept the common record straight.

The opposite is a camera in an eraser, a fabricated lab image, an earpiece turning someone into a licensed engineer for an afternoon. Pretending to know saves present embarrassment and spends the credit of every future sentence.

In class, in a meeting, before a verdict you have not read: “I don’t know enough yet.”

A Moment of Reflection

The last time I pretended to know—what was I protecting?

4. Do what you said you would do. If you cannot, tell the other person while they still have options.

The brothers who would not carry a debt into the new year

In Huangpi, on the edge of Wuhan, Sun Shuilin and Sun Donglin ran building crews for more than twenty years. Their family rule was never written into a contract: do not carry last year’s wages into the new year.

In China the lunar New Year is when migrant workers go home. Unpaid wages then are not an accounting inconvenience. They are a family that cannot put food on a reunion table.

On 9 February 2010, the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, snow was forecast. The elder brother said he had to leave that night or the roads would close and the men would not be paid. He packed 110,000 yuan he had raised and borrowed another 150,000 from his brother. Two hundred and sixty thousand in cash went into the boot. He took his wife and three children and drove into the snow.

Before dawn, a pile-up on the Nan–Lan expressway killed all five.

In the crushed spare-tyre well, Sun Donglin found the bundle intact. He said: our year is already gone; the men who followed my brother for ten years will not lose theirs.

On the twenty-ninth, more than sixty workers came for their pay. Two hundred and sixty thousand was not enough. He added 66,000 of his own. Their mother, Song Lamei, seventy, brought out 10,000 of her savings for old age. Some notebooks had burned in the crash. He asked the men to name their own figures in good faith. That day 336,000 yuan was paid in full. That night he knelt before his brother’s memorial: “The wages are clear. You can go.”

If you cannot keep a promise, say so while the other person can still change plans—not after the dress has missed the ceremony.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time I failed an appointment, did I speak early, or only after the other person had nowhere left to turn?

5. When you are angry, do not say the most wounding sentence, and do not make a large decision.

On 2 May 2017, in Zhengzhou, a doctor named Yang asked a neighbour, Duan, not to smoke in a residential lift—an enclosed public space, and locally forbidden. The camera recorded less than five minutes: no shoving, no insults. Shortly afterwards Duan, who had serious heart disease, collapsed and died. The family sued for more than 400,000 yuan. The appeal court dismissed the claim: the warning had been calm, within bounds, and not the legal cause of death.

What is worth keeping is not only that he named a rule. It is that he did not let the argument become a blade.

Road rage is the other face: cutting in from the hard shoulder, throwing bottles, ramming a car three times because it stalled at a green light. Anger at that speed is like yanking the wheel. The whole road pays.

A household rule: either person may call a ten-minute pause. In those ten minutes, no message that ends a marriage, no resignation, no getting out of the car to settle it with fists.

A Moment of Reflection

The most wounding thing I last said—would I still say it after ten minutes?

6. Do not treat a wrong as right merely because “everyone is doing it.”

“Chinese-style street crossing” became a catchphrase: when enough people have gathered, they walk, whatever the light. Asked why, the common answer was: if I stand here alone I look foolish.

The crowd does not reduce the danger. It only spreads the shame. Tian could have told himself that no one would see. Numbers do not vote a wrong into a right.

If parents cross by the light rather than by the herd, a child has a chance to look “a little silly” at school and still be right.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time I followed, was it because the thing was right—or because I did not want to stand alone?

7. Being able to take a thing is not the same as being entitled to it.

In 2026, near Shenzhen’s Shuibei jewellery quarter, Ms. Cai picked up a gold plate stamped 758.9 grams—worth more than 900,000 yuan at the time. She took it to the compound office and the police. She had worked in the trade for more than a decade. “If it isn’t ours, we don’t take it.”

In Dandong a cleaner earning 600 yuan a month pulled 200,000 yuan from a rubbish bin and called the police first.

She could have kept it. She did not treat reach as a right. A woman who emptied cherries into her bag in a supermarket blind spot was not poor. Reach was never the reason.

A Moment of Reflection

If the change is a hundred too much, do I pretend not to notice?

8. When interest and conscience pull apart, give conscience more weight.

On the night of 6 April 2012, in Yantai, Zhang Jisuo, twenty-eight, a forging worker, left a lottery shop and kicked a brown briefcase: 100,000 in cash, plus cheques and delivery notes worth about 700,000 in all. His mother was seriously ill and needed money. He waited half an hour in the wind, then rang the number on the driving licence. Within three hours the bag was back. He refused a reward.

Most of us will not meet 700,000 on a pavement. We meet smaller splits: a kickback, a false sick note, a shortcut in an exam. The test is the same. If I had to describe this to my child, would I still do it?

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a private advantage I would not want my child to watch me take?

9. Before you do the thing you are hesitating over, ask: if everyone knew, would I still do it?

Tian’s details later appeared in the papers and survived being seen. Sun, on the train, assumed a corner of a carriage had no camera. Hesitation itself is often already a vote.

The dinner-table test: could I tell this story at New Year, in front of the whole family?

A Moment of Reflection

This message, this money, this recording—if I dropped it into the family chat, would I still send it?

10. Self-command is not being managed by others. It is still managing yourself when no one is in charge.

Zhang Ge, a cleaner in Taizhou, Zhejiang, opened discarded cartons and watched 55,000 yuan—about a year’s wages—spill out. The basement had no camera. She fetched the property desk and returned the money in front of police and neighbours.

An unstaffed shop assumes people can govern themselves. Those who heard “unstaffed” as “unpoliced” were calculating odds, not right and wrong.

Can you close the game when the agreed hour arrives? At an empty junction, can you still stop for the red light? If children only see courtesy performed in front of a boss, they learn a performance.

A Moment of Reflection

When there is no camera, am I the same person as when there is one?

Tonight you can

Agree at home: when we are wrong, we say “that was me” first. When we are angry, we pause.

Part II. How to Treat Other People: Respect, Goodwill, and Measure

A daily lesson from the old books | Measure yourself by the same rule

Do not do to others what you would not have done to you. That is not servility. It is the refusal to treat another person as scenery. Respect does not require you to disappear; having a sense of measure does not require you to grow cold.

11. Give a person basic respect, whatever their job, wealth, or rank.

On Shengli Fourth Road in Yichang, Hubei, a breakfast stall kept several worn account books. From five or six in the morning, street cleaners pushed the door, signed a name, and took buns and hot soy milk. Over four hundred dawns the books gathered nearly twenty thousand names. Many ate for more than a year without knowing who paid.

It was Yan Fuhua, who worked in biotechnology. He left home early and came back late. He watched people in the wind and wanted them to eat something hot first. A cleaner named Lei later said that in those years strangers greeted him on the road, and young people stood up on the bus. The days felt worth walking into.

In Qingyuan and Lianjiang, customers struck delivery riders over an entrance gate or a pin on a map. Courts were plain: a uniform is not a licence to be hit.

Take the parcel and say thank you. Do not tell a child, “If you don’t study you will sweep streets.”

A Moment of Reflection

Toward people who cannot open a door for me, are my sentences complete?

12. Do not make sport of another person’s poverty, appearance, accent, illness, disability, or mistake.

In June 2025, in Hui’an, Quanzhou, a primary-school child sent a beanbag into an air-conditioner. The class teacher had every pupil slap him, one after another, for about three minutes. Police treated it as insult. The teacher was detained administratively and dismissed.

A fault can be named. Making the whole class strike him names the child, not the mistake.

If you hear a nickname built on a limp or a village accent, you can stop the room: “We use his name.” Unverified stories about “a certain teacher” or “a certain parent” should not be dressed as news.

At table, do not drink to someone else’s weight, dialect, or old coat.

A Moment of Reflection

The last joke I told—if the target were my child, would I still tell it?

13. Let a person finish speaking. Do not interrupt to prove you know more.

A child begins, “I don’t want to practise today.” On the third second comes, “Do you know what that class cost?” You win the point. You lose the next time they open their mouth.

A small practice: when they finish, say first, “What I hear you saying is…” Then give your view.

A Moment of Reflection

Whom did I interrupt today?

14. When you must point out a fault, leave the other person their dignity.

At an education meeting, teachers whose classes had low average scores were photographed under the word shame on a backdrop. The local government later apologised. Results can be discussed with numbers behind a door. A public shaming is no longer about the work.

Behind a closed door: “This piece of work failed. How do we repair it?” Not: “You are beyond help.”

A Moment of Reflection

When I name a problem, am I trying to help them change—or trying to win?

15. Do not take private pleasure in another person’s failure, humiliation, or misfortune.

On the pavement below a person in crisis on a ledge, someone shouted “Why haven’t you jumped?” Others filmed and complained of the heat. Some of the hecklers were later detained. The facts are heavy enough.

Do not forward “they had it coming.” Do not serve a neighbour’s grief as supper conversation.

A Moment of Reflection

Have I tapped “like” on someone else’s disaster?

16. Do not pry into income, illness, marriage, or family conflict that the other person has not offered.

“What do you make a month?” “Why did you really divorce?” Kinship gives a duty of care. It does not give a warrant. A short sentence is enough: “If you’d rather not, we’ll talk about something else.”

A Moment of Reflection

Would I be at ease if these questions were put to me in public? Why, then, do I think I may put them to others?

17. No closeness entitles you to decide another person’s life.

Advice may be given to the end. The decision stays with the person who must live it. A degree, a job, a spouse are not a second life a parent intends to live through the child. “For your own good” can be a backstop. Deciding for them cancels their growing up.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time I said “it’s for your own good,” did I leave them the right to refuse?

18. Before you help, ask whether help is wanted. Do not let kindness become a burden.

In October 2025, in Yueqing, Lin, sixty-seven and disabled, fell and said clearly that she did not need to be lifted. Zhao, eighty-two, pulled her up anyway. Both went down. Zhao later died of illness; a lawsuit followed. The court restored the order of events: refusal first, force second. Kindness still needs the other person’s consent.

Ask: “Do you want a hand?” If the answer is no, take the hand back.

A Moment of Reflection

Has my kindness ever made someone stand in public as an object of pity?

19. When someone has refused clearly, do not push again.

A cup of liquor ducked at a banquet was forced in on the second try. Yu died of acute alcohol poisoning. Those who poured and those who cheered shared the damages. Red packets rammed into a doctor’s pocket, wedding horseplay that ignores a bride’s plea, a rejected match who still waits at the door: all are ways of hearing no as push once more.

Warmth stops at the first refusal.

A Moment of Reflection

After they said no, how many more times did I push?

20. Respecting others does not diminish you. Leaving them room is how you keep your own dignity.

Doctor Yang named a no-smoking rule without pinning a label on a man. Leaving room means that when the other person corrects course, they can still live with themselves long enough to put the thing right.

A Moment of Reflection

Have I ever left someone only one road—the road of defiance?

Tonight you can

Put the phone face down when someone at home is speaking. Knock before you enter a room.

Part III. Speech: True, Measured, and Worth Hearing

A daily lesson from the old books | Do not fill the sentence to the brim

“The gentleman wishes to be slow in speech and swift in action.” This is not a ban on speaking. It is a refusal to turn every remark into a verdict. Leave half a step for facts, and for the other person.

21. Do not treat as fact what you have not established as fact.

Before you pass on a startling item, search the name plus “official notice” or “refutation.” A Shanghai newsroom once ran a correction under the headline “Sorry—we slapped our own face.” The correction cost more than a hundred thousand forwards. It was also cleaner than letting the error stand.

A Moment of Reflection

Before I forwarded, did I open a second source?

22. Do not enlarge, trim, or twist a story merely to make it travel.

A sharper story is not a truer one. If you must tell it, tell what you can stand by if the person concerned is in the room.

A Moment of Reflection

What did I cut to make the story better—and was the cut a person?

23. Do not say behind someone’s back what you would not say to their face.

A teacher in a three-person WeChat group passed on an untrue claim about a colleague and was still punished. A screen is not a private jurisdiction. If you could not stand at their desk and finish the sentence, delete it.

A Moment of Reflection

Would I read this comment aloud in front of them?

24. You may criticise the act without insulting the person who did it.

“This was late” can be heard. “People like you” closes the corridor. A class of slaps is a sentence passed on a face, not on a mistake.

A Moment of Reflection

Is my sentence about the work, or about the person?

25. Do not hide a wounding remark behind “I was only joking.”

If the other person is hurt, the joke has already failed its only test. Explain less; take it back sooner.

A Moment of Reflection

When they went quiet, did I notice—or only defend my wit?

26. A secret told to you is not yours to retell.

Ask before a screenshot leaves the chat. A young man who found a wallet handed the identity card to the community office. He did not post the owner’s papers for praise.

A Moment of Reflection

Whose confidence am I about to spend for a moment of being interesting?

27. Do not use old wounds, family secrets, or past mistakes as weapons in a quarrel.

You may win the minute. You cut a crack that does not close. Tonight, talk about tonight.

A Moment of Reflection

Did I reach for a scar because I had run out of arguments?

28. A clean “I’m sorry” is often stronger than ten explanations.

A court in Yunnan later bowed over a wrongful imprisonment. Procedure can be late; the gesture should be clean. The longer Sun’s explanations ran, the farther that first apology travelled from the carriage.

A Moment of Reflection

Am I explaining in order to be understood—or in order not to bow?

29. You may be direct. Direct is not the same as cruel.

A doctor giving hard news steadies the person before the fact. On Nanjing Metro Line 3, Zou Yuening knelt beside an elderly stranger in collapse and said, “Don’t be afraid. Hold my hand.” Sequence matters: first the human being, then the information.

A Moment of Reflection

Could the same truth have been spoken one degree milder without becoming a lie?

30. Sometimes the most fitting speech is knowing when to stop.

The same brake as principle 5. A pause is not a surrender. It is a refusal to take a corner at the speed of anger. Online, it is also the decision not to add one more stone to a pile that has already become a mob.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a conversation I should close tonight rather than win?

Tonight you can

Before you answer the startling message in the family group, search once.

Part IV. After There Is Enough: Restraint, Enough, and Care for Things

A daily lesson from the old books | A bowl of rice

“A bowl of rice, a sip of soup: remember they did not arrive by themselves.” This is not an order to live poorly. It is a reminder that the bin is visible. What you leave tonight is still there tomorrow. Thrift is not meanness. Being content is not a quarrel with wealth.

31. Being able to buy a thing is not a reason to buy it. Ask whether you need it, or only want it for a moment.

Jiang Jiang started a clothes-sharing project that sent idle garments to people who would wear them. She had once been able to buy a hundred pieces she never put on. The age had given her surplus. She chose to pass it on.

A nineteen-year-old who drained a company account to stay first on a livestream leaderboard had no such gate. A shopping cart can wait twenty-four hours.

A Moment of Reflection

If I waited a day, would I still want this—or only the feeling of taking it to the till?

32. Do not use the number of things you own to prove you have outrun other people.

A man can fill a feed with cars and still leave a court file of unpaid debts. The photograph answers a different question from the one the creditor is asking.

A Moment of Reflection

If the pictures were taken down, what would be left of the life I am defending?

33. Do not spend in order to keep up, and do not show off in order to be envied.

In some cities families have begun to treat a token bride-price as enough, and a borrowed wedding dress as dignified. Display is not proof of love. Money taken out of the performance can still feed a household.

A Moment of Reflection

Who, exactly, am I trying to impress—and will they be in the room when the bill arrives?

34. Take what you will eat. Try not to let edible food become rubbish.

A government canteen in Fangchenggang, Guangxi, gave staff a point for finishing a tray or ordering ahead. When the points could be exchanged for a small voucher, kitchen waste fell by about a third. Half-portions in Jinan, rice weighed by the gram in university halls, and a national rule against wasting food are the same account: one less spoonful tonight is one less field poured away.

A Moment of Reflection

Before I go back for more, can I finish what is already on the plate?

35. If a thing still works, do not throw it away only because a new model has appeared.

A small station in Taicang lends wedding dresses so the next bride can use the same silk. A shared bicycle locked with the code facing up is a gift to the next pair of hands. The life of a public object is decided by everyone who uses it and walks off.

A Moment of Reflection

Am I replacing this because it failed—or because I am bored of it?

36. Care for what is yours, and also for what a school, a company, a hotel, or a park holds in common.

A reporter in Wenzhou counted 187 shared bicycles; forty-six baskets were being used as bins. Someone is paid to tidy them. That is a condition of city life, not a licence to make more mess.

A Moment of Reflection

Would I leave this behind if the next user were going to be my child?

37. Thrift is not an excuse to refuse help. It is a refusal to pour resources into what does not matter.

Yan Fuhua’s breakfast books and Zhang Jisuo’s returned briefcase are not at odds with a closed tap. Save the leak. Do not close the hand that should open.

A Moment of Reflection

Am I saving a genuine waste—or hiding from a genuine need?

38. Wealth may improve a life. Do not let desire grow faster than the wealth.

A ranking on a livestream can empty a firm. A family that writes a ceiling for gifts and game charges is doing less dramatic work, and more useful work, than a confession after the fact.

A Moment of Reflection

Has my “just this once” already become the new floor?

39. Ask yourself, now and then: if I owned less, could I still live well?

The question is not an order to give everything away. It is a check on the story that every addition is necessary.

A Moment of Reflection

What is the last thing I bought that I would not miss?

40. Simplicity is not poverty. It is knowing, after you have a choice, what is already enough.

A Moment of Reflection

Where, in my house, is “enough” still waiting to be admitted?

Tonight you can

Ask, before the next order, whether the plate will be finished. Empty a bicycle basket before you lock it.

Part V. Money and Advantage: Take Only What Is Yours

A daily lesson from the old books | Do not snatch at wealth

“Do not snatch at wealth; do not flee a hard duty.” This is not a quarrel with the rich. It is one more question before the hand closes: whose is this?

41. Do not pocket what is not yours, however small.

The extra ten thousand at the counter

Song Jian went to a bank to change money. When he reached the street he found an extra ten thousand yuan in the bag. He went back, filmed the notes as he handed them over, and waited while the bank traced the previous customer. Nothing in the queue required a speech. The money had a name that was not his.

A warden in the hills of Ruijin, Lai Dongbei, found a handbag on patrol—papers and a little more than five thousand yuan of wages. Within an hour it was at the police station and he was back on the mountain.

In Yixing a man who kept what he had found was ordered by a court to return it. Finding is not owning.

He Laobo took a supermarket to the consumers’ association over five fen rounded away at the till. A fraction of a yuan is still money. The point was not the coin. It was the rule.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time a till or a counter was generous by mistake, what did I do?

42. Return what you borrow without being asked.

Zhang Hailin posted a public note: she needed thirty people? No—three hundred people—to lend one thousand yuan each, and no more. She numbered the loans 001 to 300 and repaid them as her wages arrived. Closeness is a reason to write the terms down, not a reason to leave them vague. “I have a poor memory” is a kinder sentence than “I don’t trust you.” The relationship is injured later, when the money does not come back.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a loan I am treating as forgotten because no one has dared to ask?

43. In a sale, do not hide a fact that would have changed the other person’s mind.

A clinic advertised that it could lower blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood lipids. It was rubbing on ordinary cream. A court ordered a refund and damages. An old customer who had known the truth would not have stopped her prescribed medicine.

A Moment of Reflection

If the other person knew what I know, would they still sign?

44. Do not take advantage of ignorance, haste, old age, loneliness, or distress.

Free eggs and a lecture on tonic products are often aimed at a quiet afternoon. Sit through one session with an older relative and practice the sentence “We won’t buy today.”

A Moment of Reflection

Would I still make this pitch if the listener were my own parent, fully informed?

45. Even when a gain is legal, you can still ask whether it is fair.

Prepaid cards that say “no refunds, no replacement if lost” have been struck down as unfair terms. Print is not the same as justice.

A Moment of Reflection

Is this clause protecting a real cost—or trapping a person who cannot wait?

46. Do not flatter a person because they are rich, or slight them because they are poor.

The same measure as principle 11. A kickback offered only to the person who can write the prescription is a slight to the patient who pays.

A Moment of Reflection

Does my courtesy change when the bill in the other wallet changes?

47. The closer the kinship, the clearer the money should be.

Amount, whether it is a gift or a loan, and a date: three lines in a message will do. When the story later splits, a court may otherwise have to call it a gift.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a family sum I am leaving vague because I am afraid of seeming cold?

48. Remember help you have received. After you have given help, do not keep sending reminders of the debt.

A short thank-you after a meal is enough. A reminder sent too often turns a kindness into a loan whose interest is dignity.

A Moment of Reflection

When I help, am I giving—or opening an account?

49. Money increases choice. It does not grade a person’s character.

The same rule as 32. A life can be improved by wealth. It can also be used to display, to cheat, and to delay.

A Moment of Reflection

If my accounts were public tomorrow, what would they say about my character that my titles do not?

50. Learn how to earn. Learn also when to say no to a gain.

Song Jian said no to the extra bundle. He Laobo said no to “we can round it inside the system.” A consumers’ association said no to a clause written only for the seller.

A Moment of Reflection

What is the smallest advantage I am currently talking myself into?

Tonight you can

Send one message that confirms a family loan: amount, gift or repayment, date.

Part VI. Between the Strong and the Weak: Kindness Needs Courage

A daily lesson from the old books | Seeing and not acting

“To see what ought to be done and not to do it is want of courage.” Courage here is not a love of fighting. Protecting the weak does not cancel right and wrong. Seeking fairness is not a licence to form a mob.

51. Do not bully someone weaker than you, and do not join in when others do.

A study of school bullying found that when a bystander steps in, the episode often stops. Refusing a nickname leaves a hole in the circle. A whole class told to strike, a crowd told to laugh: both are weapons made of numbers.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time a joke needed a victim, did I add my voice?

52. When a child, an older person, a disabled person, or someone in trouble needs reasonable help, give it if you safely can.

On 11 August 2025, at 17:50, on Nanjing Metro Line 3, an eighty-one-year-old man collapsed from low blood sugar. Zou Yuening, a doctor, went down on both knees in the carriage, set his body, found a pulse, and said, “Don’t be afraid. Hold my hand.” She handed him to the police and left. Transit police later put her forward for a civic-courage citation. Principle 29 borrowed one sentence from this scene. This is the scene.

In Beijing, at the Dongdan underpass, officers, station staff, and an off-duty nurse from Peking Union Medical College Hospital have more than once lifted a fainted stranger to a wider landing. People call it a safe corner of the city. It is not magic. It is the next person who stops.

On 28 January 2025, Zhang Kangyuan, a bus driver in Linyi, pulled over on the Yihe bridge, asked his passengers first, took off his coat, and jumped some ten metres into winter water to push a drowning person toward the bank. The bonus he received he spent on supplies for a children’s home.

Three delivery riders in Chongqing bound a wound and called for more hands, though one of them still had orders waiting. The platform later excused the delay. Kindness, they admitted, also costs time.

If you cannot do the work yourself, shout and call. Heroics without skill are another way of adding a victim.

A Moment of Reflection

If this happened three metres from me, would I move—or only watch well enough to describe it later?

53. Do not use office, money, knowledge, strength, connections, or numbers to press someone down.

A lectern, a prescription pad, a customer standing inside a gate, a pile-on in a group chat: all are advantages. If you would not speak that way without them, take the sentence back.

A Moment of Reflection

Which of my advantages was I quietly using the last time I “won” an argument?

54. When a crowd is mocking one person, have the courage not to join.

Do not forward. Do not tap the laugh. Walk the target away if you can. You lose a little warmth. Someone is not closed in.

A Moment of Reflection

Have I ever laughed mainly so that I would not become the next target?

55. When a clear injustice happens in front of you, say a fair word if safety and ability allow.

Zhao Yu in Fuzhou pulled a man off a woman being beaten. He was first treated as if he had gone too far. A guiding case from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate later called it lawful defence and declined to prosecute. On a playground, the fair word is often spoken first to a teacher, not to a crowd.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a sentence I withheld because it would have cost me ease?

56. Protect a weaker person without treating them as permanently incapable.

Help, then step back. Do not take over their story. Ask whether they want the help. Pity that never ends is another kind of capture.

A Moment of Reflection

After I helped, did I leave them a life that was still theirs?

57. Before the strong, do not reverse right and wrong out of fear. Before the weak, do not cancel right and wrong out of sympathy.

Tears cannot turn a falsehood true. Rank cannot turn a falsehood true either.

A Moment of Reflection

Which am I more afraid of today: offending power, or admitting that someone I pity is also wrong?

58. Before you claim justice, get the facts. Do not condemn a person because you are angry.

Anger may be in order. A verdict is not. A trending name is not a judgment.

A Moment of Reflection

Have I passed sentence on someone whose file I have not read?

59. Justice is not revenge, and it is not a permit for a crowd to close on one person.

Online pile-ons, doxxing, funeral wreaths sent to a door, a forced apology on camera: numbers cannot stand in for a court. Some people have chosen to sue instead of answering in the same coin.

A Moment of Reflection

Is what I am joining a finding of fact—or a hunt?

60. Real courage includes restraint when you could still hurt someone.

In one reported defence case, a man knocked a knife from an attacker’s hand and then stopped. Another man on the same scene kept beating a head with a stick and was found to have gone too far. When the knife is down, the hand has to come down too. A guiding case involving Yu Huan accepted that he was defending himself and still recorded the excess.

A Moment of Reflection

After the danger ended, did I stop—or did I collect a little more?

Tonight you can

Agree at home: we do not join a nickname. After a fight is over, no “one more blow to settle it.”

Part VII. Family and Friends: Closeness Still Has an Edge

A daily lesson from the old books | Near, and still upright

A house is not a zone where courtesy is cancelled. The worst temper should not be reserved for the people who have the least room to leave.

61. Be civil to strangers. Do not spend your worst temper only on the people at home.

Pause ten seconds at the door. Repeated insult and threat are written into the legal definition of domestic violence. The street does not get the only good version of you.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a tone I use at home that I would never use in a shop?

62. Honour parents and care for elders. An adult still has to answer for their own life.

In Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, Ms. Zhou married under her mother’s threats of being thrown out and of a death staged for her to watch. A court found coercion and set the marriage aside. Southern Metropolis Daily later reported an eighteen-year-old from Gansu who fled a marriage arranged without her consent, found work in Shenzhen, and was seized on the street by men hired to take her home. Police crossed provinces to bring her out.

Listen to the fear. Do not hand over the choice. The Civil Code is plain: marriage requires the free will of both people.

A Moment of Reflection

When I say I am being filial, am I offering care—or claiming a veto?

63. Loving a child is not the same as granting every wish. Teaching limits is also love.

“It is not that I do not love you. It is that this is not reasonable.” A toy can wait a month. A rule is a fence, not a cruelty. The girl who emptied a company to stay at the top of a leaderboard had, somewhere behind her, a door that never closed.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time I said no, did I say why—or only raise my voice?

64. In a family quarrel, solving the problem matters more than proving you won.

Upstairs children running, downstairs unable to sleep: a judge asked both sides to name one small change each, instead of a winner. Soft-soled shoes, a mat, a building note about nine o’clock. A home is not a courtroom.

A Moment of Reflection

Was I arguing about the dishes—or about who is allowed to be right?

65. “I am doing this for your own good” does not give you the right to run another person’s life.

A protection order can be sought without filing for divorce. In an emergency a court may rule within a day. Care stops at advice. Control demands obedience. A diary, a body, a marriage, a set of friends: the list of things that are not yours to command should be written down while everyone is calm.

A Moment of Reflection

After I offered help, did I leave a sentence that allowed them to disagree?

66. When a friend talks about trouble, listen first. You do not have to supply a plan every time.

Ask: “Do you want ideas, or do you want someone here?”

A Moment of Reflection

The last time someone trusted me with a difficulty, did I listen them out?

67. Do not walk into another person’s private space. Do not read their phone, mail, diary, or private files.

A judge in Fengtai was asked whether, if you suspect you have been filmed, you may seize another person’s phone. No. A phone is both privacy and property. Knock before a bedroom door. Relentless checking of a partner’s accounts is not care. It is a form of fear with a password.

A Moment of Reflection

What have I opened that was not offered?

68. If you stay in someone’s home, ride in their car, or use their things, leave as little trouble as you can.

Be on time. Put things back. Take your rubbish. A partitioned flat that keeps a whole stairwell awake is not a visit. It is an occupation.

A Moment of Reflection

When I left last, was the room easier or harder for the person who lives there?

69. Thank a host. If help has been long, do not treat it as a utility.

A banner delivered once is enough. Hot water and a spare room are not a standing subscription.

A Moment of Reflection

Whom have I stopped thanking because they have been kind for too many years?

70. A good relationship is not the absence of boundaries. It is closeness that still knows where the other person ends.

You may hold someone and still ask, “Is this a moment when you can talk?”

A Moment of Reflection

If each of us wrote one line beginning “Please do not…,” could we put the paper on the fridge?

Tonight you can

Each person writes one boundary. The paper goes on the fridge.

Part VIII. Public Life: The World Is Not Only You

A daily lesson from the old books | Regular hours, and no offence to the person beside you

Upright bearing, a lower voice, a line that holds: this is not a timetable from another century. It is the admission that other people have ears and feet.

71. When a queue is required, join it. Your hurry does not put you first.

A ticket is a place already assigned. Pushing in is a way of saying that other people’s haste does not count.

A Moment of Reflection

The last time I thought “just this once,” how many other people were thinking it too?

72. Be on time if you can. If you will be late, say when you will arrive. Other people’s time has the same value as yours.

Zhang Kangyuan asked his passengers before he stopped the bus to jump. He counted their time inside his own act. “On my way” does not give back the hour already emptied for you.

A Moment of Reflection

Do I announce a real time, or only a soothing sentence?

73. In a public place, keep the phone, the music, the video, and the talk down.

Smoke goes into other lungs. A speaker goes into other ears. Headphones are the default.

A Moment of Reflection

If the person beside me were ill, or sitting an exam in their head, would I still play this aloud?

74. Do not drop litter, and do not make a mess because “someone is paid to clean.”

The forty-six bicycle baskets in Wenzhou are the same sentence as a tray left for a canteen worker who has a name.

A Moment of Reflection

Would I do this in my own kitchen?

75. At a door, on a train, on stairs, look for the older person, the child, the pregnant woman, the disabled person, the person who cannot move quickly.

Hold the door a second longer. Move a bicycle off a tactile paving strip. Giving up a seat is not a loss. It is proof that you still see.

A Moment of Reflection

When did I last look behind me as a door swung shut?

76. When you use a shared thing, think of the next person who will use it.

Flush. Wipe the board. Pump the ball up again.

A Moment of Reflection

Did I leave this as I would wish to find it?

77. Waiters, cleaners, couriers, and drivers are your equals in dignity. Service is not a lower rank.

A uniform is not a target. Complain about the missing item. Do not curse “people like you.” If a child repeats “they’re only there to serve,” correct it in the same breath.

A Moment of Reflection

Are my sentences to a waiter as complete as my sentences to a client?

78. If you have put someone out, say so. If they have done a small thing for you, do not hoard the thanks.

Short words oil a city. A child given a seat should speak.

A Moment of Reflection

Whom did I fail to thank today because the help looked small?

79. Enjoy your freedom in a way that leaves other people their quiet, their safety, and a little private space.

Freedom is not a circle without a radius. A camera stops before another person’s face. A song stops before another person’s sleep.

A Moment of Reflection

Which of my freedoms is currently leaning on someone who cannot move away?

80. Manners are not proved on important people. They are proved on people who cannot help you.

Yan Fuhua and the cleaners. Zou Yuening and a man she did not know. Lai Dongbei and a bag on a path. If the courtesy vanishes when there is no audience, it was never courtesy.

A Moment of Reflection

Who saw the version of me that I do not put on a stage?

Tonight you can

Join one queue and stay in it. Put headphones on before the next journey.

Part IX. Screens and Machines: There Is Still a Person Behind the Glass

A daily lesson from the old books | Be careful with words

“A word sent out cannot be overtaken by four horses.” The send key is today’s team of horses. A model may lend you a sentence. It cannot lend you a name.

81. Do not say through a screen what you would not say in the room.

A child who swears in a game is doing what they would do to a classmate, with better cover. Treat it as the same act.

A Moment of Reflection

Would I finish this comment standing in front of them?

82. Before you forward a startling claim, ask whether it is true.

People who kept circulating a rumour through more than a thousand groups after an official denial were later convicted of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Forwarding is a second publication.

A Moment of Reflection

Did I open a second source, or only a stronger feeling?

83. Do not publish another person’s photograph, chat, address, or private information without permission.

Courts have given prison terms for spreading intimate images and for buying personal data to write a smear. A found wallet goes to an office. It does not go onto a feed with the owner’s identity card displayed.

A Moment of Reflection

Whose life am I about to make searchable for an afternoon of attention?

84. Do not join an online pile-on. A million voices do not mean the facts are in.

This is a practice, not a news story: when a name starts to trend, wait. A crowd is not a court.

A Moment of Reflection

Am I adding information—or adding weight?

85. Do not treat another person’s disaster, illness, death, or humiliation as material for traffic.

At the scene, help first. If you film, film for the police, not for a composition. Ask whether a family would have to watch their person die a second time.

A Moment of Reflection

Would I still post this if the family were in my contacts?

86. Likes, followers, rankings, and attention do not decide what a person is worth.

Switch the numbers off. What remains: work done, debts paid, claims checked, no one smaller used as a prop.

A Moment of Reflection

What praise am I giving a child that is only a count?

87. Machine prose can be fluent. Fluent is not the same as true. Check the facts that matter.

A generated video of a car on fire was passed around because it felt vivid. The poster later said it had seemed like fun. Software that talks is not a witness. Save the word fluent for this page; it belongs here.

A Moment of Reflection

Would I stake a medical or legal decision on this paragraph without a second source?

88. Do not use a model to impersonate someone, to cheat someone weaker, or to invent harm.

A swapped face, a cloned voice, a fake call from a “grandson at a police station”: the injury is the old one, delivered faster.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a likeness I have used that the person never offered?

89. A model may help you think and write. It cannot take over the judgment you still have to sign.

Let it list headings. Who borrows, who forwards, who pays: the person whose name is on the message decides.

A Moment of Reflection

Where have I been using a tool as an alibi?

90. A model can write the sentence. It cannot answer for it.

Read it aloud before you send: do I stand behind this? A child’s message written by a model is still the child’s message at home.

A Moment of Reflection

If this goes wrong, whose name will be asked for?

Tonight you can

Write the comment, then run it through one test: would I say it in the room?

Part X. What We Leave: Responsibility, Modesty, and Conscience

A daily lesson from the old books | Take care of the world; do not sit on the credit

Remember the people who helped, and the luck that did. When you leave, leave fewer holes. Tradition is not a demand to live in another century. It is the seriousness we keep, and the coercion we put down.

91. When you use water, power, food, and other resources, remember that the world is not only this generation’s.

The more vouchers a canteen issued for empty trays, the lighter the bin. The well was not sunk by this committee.

A Moment of Reflection

What am I using as if there were no one after me?

92. Do not waste a thing because it is public, free, or paid for by someone else.

The same rule as 36. Thrift minds the leak. It does not close a hand that should help.

A Moment of Reflection

Does my care drop as soon as the bill is not in my name?

93. Keep a basic pity for animals and for life. Do not make pointless pain into a game.

On 28 June 2026, in Xinheng Town, Jiedong, Jieyang, Guangdong, villagers told Beijing News that a street dog, fed for a long time and rarely driven off, had just had three puppies about two weeks old. The next day a video circulated of minors harming stray dogs. Reports described beating and the use of a flammable liquid. The mother and the puppies died.

On 30 June the town government said a working group had been formed, schools would strengthen teaching, parents must face their duty of care, and four people involved, all under fourteen, had been sent to a specialised school. It asked the public not to spread the material and not to turn the children into a second hunt. Police in Jiedong told the paper a case had been filed. Being under the age of criminal responsibility is not the same as nothing happening. The specialised school and the parents’ duty are the path the law leaves at that age.

A family book does not write the acts so that they can be copied. The question is simpler: pain itself became the game, and someone filmed it. That is the same stone as “do not bully the weaker” and “do not turn a disaster into traffic.” Anger is intelligible. Hunting a named child is not justice.

By contrast: in Chaoyang, Beijing, Zhang Mouhua put poisoned bait near a parcel locker because a dog had urinated by his vehicle. Dogs and stray cats died. In December 2025 a court gave him four years for endangering public safety by dangerous means. A court in Haikou found animal cruelty proved to the civil standard and added that exposure has a boundary.

Pity does not require everyone to adopt. It requires that we not manufacture extra pain. A living thing is not a toy.

A Moment of Reflection

Have I watched, forwarded, or laughed at pain that was arranged for an audience?

94. Before you judge a culture, a custom, or a faith you do not know, learn something about it. Disagreement does not require mockery.

You may refuse a forced marriage without trampling an entire countryside. Reform is negotiated. It is not a sneer at where people came from.

A Moment of Reflection

Can I state one reason a custom exists before I joke about it?

95. In success, remember who helped you, and admit the luck and the moment you were given.

The Sun brothers paid out credit the crew had stored together. Zhang Hailin could repay because three hundred people had trusted her with a thousand each, and because she still had wages. Work is real. So is the year you did not fall ill.

A Moment of Reflection

Whose name did I leave out of the last story I told about myself?

96. In failure, do not push every fault onto others. In success, do not gather every honour to yourself.

After a poor exam, list the three chapters you skipped before you list the teacher. When a project stands, write a colleague’s name first. Do not end a quarrel with “this is all because of you.” Sun on the train has already used up his page.

A Moment of Reflection

In my last excuse, what share was honestly mine?

97. If you hold power, do not begin with “What can I make others do?” Begin with “Where should this power stop?”

A lectern stops at dignity. Parenthood stops at another adult’s consent. Intimacy stops at privacy. A prescription pad stops before a kickback. The first lesson in power is not the manual. It is the brake.

Newburgh, 1783

In March 1783 the American war was winding down and the army had not been paid. At Newburgh, in New York, officers circulated an anonymous call to refuse to disband—and, if the civil power would not yield, to take a harder line with Congress. On the 15th, George Washington walked into the meeting. He was the one man who could have led that refusal. He told them he had grown grey and nearly blind in their service, fumbled for glasses they had not seen him wear, and asked them not to open a door that a republic could not close. The room broke. The plot ended.

He could have made the country answer to the army. He asked instead where a victorious general’s power ought to stop. The officers in that room had unpaid wages and a winning army behind them; the easier speech would have been about what they were owed. He talked about what they must not become.

The question does not require a war. It is the same in a staff room, a family chat, and a comment thread. Rank changes. The temptation does not.

A Moment of Reflection

If no one were watching this decision, would I still draw the same line?

98. When the law, the rule, and the crowd do not hand you an answer, listen to your conscience.

The extra ten thousand was not under a policeman’s eye at the door. What Song Jian heard was: this is not mine. The same stone as principle 1.

A Moment of Reflection

If my child found this chat tomorrow, would I still press send?

99. Before a large decision, ask: if my child did this later, would I want them to become that person?

You hope they hand in a wallet. You do not hope they shout from the pavement. Do not spend tonight rehearsing the person you would hate to raise.

A Moment of Reflection

Which of my present habits would I be unwilling to see repeated in someone I love?

100. When you leave a place, a job, a relationship, or the world, try to leave it a little better for your having been there.

Clothes that can be worn again. A dress that can serve another morning. A breakfast stall that still has a book to sign. A bank customer who does not have to rebuild a life. An old man who is still on a train because someone knelt. Soft shoes and an extra hour of sleep downstairs. A handover note that keeps the next person from stepping in a hole.

You cannot promise that the world will improve. You can promise fewer pits on the stretch you were given.

Look at a hotel room before you go. Do not put a private life on a feed because a love has ended. Ask a child: when you leave this desk, this classroom, this house, will it be easier for the next person because you were here?

The last principle is not a demand to become a saint. It is a demand to add less weight when you go.

A Moment of Reflection

Is there a room I can leave tonight in better order than I found it?

Tonight you can

Before you leave any room, make it a little easier for the person who comes next.

Closing | The mirror is still there

I have not kept all hundred.

I still reach for a reason before I reach for the fault. I have said the wounding sentence. I have interrupted. I have used closeness as a claim. I have offered help without asking.

None of that would make a headline. Laid out in a line, it is still the distance between a person and a better one.

Will I keep all hundred later? Probably not.

But a wounding sentence left unsaid, a thing returned, a complete sentence to a waiter, a refusal to throw the next stone, a room left clearer than it was found—civility grows back in units that small.

I am not here to teach other people how to be human.

We are here to learn it again, together.

The mirror is still there.

Today, am I a little closer to being a good person than I was yesterday?