Zhao family

Updated on Nov 20, 2023

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Traditional Chinese 趙家人 Literal meaning the Zhao family Wade–Giles Chao-chia-jên		Simplified Chinese 赵家人 Hanyu Pinyin Zhàojiārén

The Zhao family (Chinese: 赵家人) refers to dignitaries in China, such as the top bureaucrat, the rich, leaders in-system and their offsprings. The phrase originates from Lu Xun's "The True Story of Ah Q". In December 2015, an article in Wechat public account described dignitaries as the Zhao family. Immediately, the phrase "the Zhao family" became an Internet meme. Soon after, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China prohibited the use of such words as "the Zhao family". Medias which have used such words got punished. Accordingly, such words as "the Zhao family" are no longer visible from main websites in China.

Derived usages

As the word spreading widely, there have come up derived usages such as "the Zhao family empire", "the Zhao king". Here are some examples:

While having words with 50 Cent Party, some people used "You think you're worthy of the surname Zhao?" as a taunt and response.

Comments

Qiao Mu, associate professor in Beijing Foreign Studies University, said that "the word 'the Zhao family' is a subversive deconstruction in Internet era. We called officials 'People's public servant' whereas in fact they are still dignitaries. There are just princelings in China. It's sensitive to say so frankly, thus people use words like 'the Zhao family' as a taunt."

Hong Kong Oriental Daily News noted the word expresses both resistance of fake patriotism propagandize and dissatisfied with the fact.

Hu Ping, the honorary editor of Chinese magazine Beijing Spring, believed that princelings, represented by Party general secretary Xi Jinping, were now gathering politics and economy resources without restriction, which obviously contradicted with the claim of right in civilians.

References

Zhao family Wikipedia

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Derived usages

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