ABSTRACT
The author introduces the concepts of good renyuan (good 'social relationships') and suzhi ('quality', as in the expression 'a person of high quality'), both of which have been prevalent in Chinese moral discourses in recent years. He suggests that, in the local understanding, one should actively cultivate good renyuan in order to avoid provoking malicious envy in others. By contrast, the sin of being envied, at least within the Chinese tradition—where institutionalized forms of envy are generally lacking—normally comes from the failure to conceal one's desirable possessions or attributes, thus providing a reminder of other people's inferiority and provoking them to commit dishonourable acts. Envy is generally believed to be normal and controllable, but it can quickly turn to hatred when the people who are envied are thought to have not deserved their success and yet still behave in such a way as to demonstrate that they clearly feel good about this anyway.
