Fitting shoe

合鞋 (hé xié) fitting shoe

"Fitting shoe" (合鞋 hé xié) is yet another homonym for "harmonious" (和谐 héxié). This phrase has its roots in a speech delivered by President Xi Jinping that met much netizen ridicule.

While on his first trip abroad as China's president, Xi Jinping delivered a speech at Moscow State Institute of International Relations on March 23, 2013. In his speech [zh] (transcript) [zh], Xi called for cooperation between Russia and China, emphasizing the two nations' shared interests in peace and stability. Xi also countered international criticism of a country's developmental path with the following words:

“Only the wearer of a shoe will know whether or not that shoe fits his foot." Whether or not the path that a country takes towards development is suitable or not, only the citizens of that country have the right to decide.

“鞋子合不合脚，自己穿了才知道”。一个国家的发展道路合不合适，只有这个国家的人民才最有发言权。

Netizens quickly took Xi to task for his words, drawing attention to the fact that they—the citizens of China—had little say in their country's path towards development. China Digital Times translated netizen comments relayed by BBC Chinese:

On Tencent Weibo, user @叶海波 says, “If a country’s people lack freedom of speech, is speaking of shoes fitting their feet not a bit extravagant?”

在腾讯微博上，网友“叶海波”说，“一国人民连说话都缺乏自由，谈鞋子合脚是不是过于奢侈了。”

Netizen @施济 thinks, “If the shoe doesn’t fit but is worn continually, this leads to the most suffering.”

署名“施济”的网友则认为，“不合脚的鞋子，还要坚持穿，这才是最痛苦的。”

User @梧桐老廖 quips, “You let your family wear comfortable shoes, while compelling ours to wear worn-out shoes of the wrong size.”

至于网友“梧桐老廖”更批评说，“你让你的家属在那边穿合脚舒适的好鞋子，却强迫我们穿不合脚的破鞋。”。

@天黑不白 raises a question, “But how will they know if this country’s people feel the shoe fits or not?”

一位网友“天黑不白”则提出问题说，“可是他怎么知道：这个国家的人民觉得鞋子合适呢？”

Blogger Wuyue Sanren posted the following soon-to-be deleted comment to his Sina Weibo microgblog: