Today I met a small official, a deputy director. After we talked, I was completely stunned.

His family has factories worth several hundred million, waiting for him to go back and inherit.
At the time, I thought, then what are you here for—still trying to get something out of it?
Later, when the conversation went deeper, I finally figured it out completely: that’s how people from Zhejiang play their way through this world.
In his family, several brothers have very clear roles and division of labor.
The most promising one, the one who’s best at reading and studying, must take the civil service exam and enter the system.
The rest take over the family business and work their hardest to grow it bigger and bigger.
The one who enters the system isn’t doing it for greed. On the contrary—his family isn’t short of money, so he has even more confidence to talk principles, stick to the rules, and not let a little bit of small benefits and favors lure him away. What’s his job? To make sure that the brother running the business can always hear the most accurate whistle, can always run the fastest within the rules.
In plain terms, it’s the backing—support, information, connections.
And the one doing business is the one who covers the whole family as a safety net, giving his brother in officialdom a dignity that won’t bow for five dou of rice.