維民所止

Chinese

		to preserve; to maintain; to hold together to preserve; to maintain; to hold together; dimension	the people; nationality; citizen	actually; place; (nominalization prefix)	to stop; prohibit; till
trad. (維民所止)		維	民	所	止
simp. (维民所止)		维	民	所	止

Etymology

From the Classic of Poetry, poem 303 (《詩經·商頌·玄鳥》):

邦畿千里，維民所止，肇域彼四海。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, trad.]

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邦畿千里，维民所止，肇域彼四海。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, simp.]

From: The Classic of Poetry, c. 11^th – 7^th centuries BCE, translated based on James Legge's version

Bāngjī qiānlǐ, wéi mín suǒ zhǐ, zhào yù bǐ sìhǎi. [Pinyin]

The royal domain of a thousand li, is where the people rest; But there commence the boundaries that reach to the four seas.

The sense of censorship is from a legend of the Qing scholar Zha Siting (查嗣庭), a distant relative of the novelist Louis Cha a.k.a. Jin Yong. It was said that he quoted the sentence above for a question in the imperial examination and was then imprisoned because 維／维 (wéi) and 止 (zhǐ) looked like the beheaded form of 雍正 (Yōngzhèng), who was the reigning emperor at that time.

Pronunciation

• Mandarin

  (Pinyin): wéimínsuǒzhǐ

  (Zhuyin): ㄨㄟˊ ㄇㄧㄣˊ ㄙㄨㄛˇ ㄓˇ

• Cantonese (Jyutping): wai⁴ man⁴ so² zi²

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• Mandarin
  • (Standard Chinese)⁺
    • Hanyu Pinyin: wéimínsuǒzhǐ [Phonetic: wéimínsuózhǐ]
    • Zhuyin: ㄨㄟˊ ㄇㄧㄣˊ ㄙㄨㄛˇ ㄓˇ
    • Tongyong Pinyin: wéimínsuǒjhǐh
    • Wade–Giles: wei²-min²-so³-chih³
    • Yale: wéi-mín-swǒ-jř
    • Gwoyeu Romatzyh: weiminsuoojyy
    • Palladius: вэйминьсочжи (vɛjminʹsočži)
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /weɪ̯³⁵ min³⁵ su̯ɔ²¹⁴⁻³⁵ ʈ͡ʂʐ̩²¹⁴⁻²¹⁽⁴⁾/
• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)⁺
    • Jyutping: wai⁴ man⁴ so² zi²
    • Yale: wàih màhn só jí
    • Cantonese Pinyin: wai⁴ man⁴ so² dzi²
    • Guangdong Romanization: wei⁴ men⁴ so² ji²
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /wɐi̯²¹ mɐn²¹ sɔː³⁵ t͡siː³⁵/

Idiom

維民所止

1. (original meaning) is where the people reside
2. A phrase used to satirize censorship of speech.