PLA Three Rules of Conduct

The PLA Three Rules of Conduct—do not say what one should not say, do not ask what one should not ask, and do not do what one should not do—are a compact military code that shapes Wu Dawang’s conduct and the novel’s wider irony. First taught as practical discipline, the rules become a means of protecting the Commander’s household and Wu Dawang’s position; their repeated use also turns discretion into silence, leaving him both shielded from exposure and unable to ask what his changing circumstances mean.

Definition and Institutional Use

Wu Dawang knows the three rules as familiar principles of the People's Liberation Army. When the Commander praises his critique without specifying whom he has outperformed, Wu Dawang does not ask. He returns to the kitchen to prepare soup, and the “Serve the People!” sign takes its place on the dining table among the vinegar, chilli sauce, and sesame oil. The juxtaposition makes the rules concrete: they are not only an abstract code but a guide to the small acts of service and restraint expected in the Commander’s home.

When the Head of Management asks what he must remember on beginning work for the Commander, Wu Dawang recites the rules and adds that serving the Commander is serving the People. The formulation fuses a political principle with a personal chain of command. It presents household service as public duty and gives the rules a practical rationale: the orderly should know his role, meet its demands, and avoid questions that exceed it.

That rationale is reinforced by Wu Dawang’s career. A middle-school education, Party ideals, and his standing as a trusted soldier do not make him a relative or equal in the Commander’s house; he understands himself to be a General Orderly. The rules mark the boundary between that assigned position and everything beyond it. They are not simply a ban on misconduct: they train him to distinguish what his responsibilities require from what he is not entitled to pursue.

The Rules in the Commander’s Household

The code is tested when Liu Lian summons Wu Dawang upstairs by moving the sign from the dining table. He remembers the Commander’s earlier warning that he should not concern himself with the upstairs, especially when Liu Lian is absent from view. At the staircase, the general instruction not to do what he should not becomes a specific conflict between a household signal and a superior’s boundary. Wu Dawang proceeds cautiously, telling himself that he has work to do, while the rules and the Commander’s warning make the meaning of that work uncertain.

Later, when Liu Lian challenges him about what an orderly in the Commander’s house must remember, Wu Dawang returns to the rules, answering that he must not say or do what he should not. His attention settles on a volume of Mao’s writings rather than on Liu Lian. The moment shows how the code can function as self-restraint: it redirects his attention and helps him hold to the identity of a disciplined soldier when the household situation unsettles it.

The sign’s changing location gives that discipline a second, private meaning. Liu Lian instructs him to come upstairs whenever the sign is no longer on the table; its movement becomes a summons that operates through the very household order Wu Dawang is meant to serve. The visible slogan is thus both a public symbol and a private signal. The rules do not prevent this double use of duty; they help make it possible by limiting what Wu Dawang permits himself to question aloud.

Silence, Discretion, and the Affair

After Wu Dawang and Liu Lian’s relationship begins, the Political Instructor calls him in following a complaint from Liu Lian and asks what he has done to cause trouble. The Instructor treats proper service to Liu Lian as part of Wu Dawang’s military responsibility, connecting the household to the Commander’s ability to concentrate on meetings and to the Division’s readiness. He also argues that the Commander’s influence might help Wu Dawang win promotion and move his family to the city. In this speech, the language of service stretches from private household management to the fate of the army and beyond.

The Instructor gives Wu Dawang another day at the house to put matters right, accepting responsibility if Liu Lian needs someone to blame. Wu Dawang does not disclose her advances, though he is angry and comes close to speaking. The narration leaves his restraint mixed: it can be read as discretion that protects her reputation, but it may also preserve a secret he has begun to value. The rules’ demand for silence therefore has no single moral meaning. It protects a person from exposure while allowing an unequal, concealed relationship to continue.

The same discretion becomes administrative procedure. Liu Lian tells the company’s Captain and Political Instructor that Wu Dawang has addressed her earlier dissatisfaction and that she wants him to sleep at the house while the Commander is away. His superiors agree, emphasizing that failures in his work reflect on the company. Wu Dawang and Liu Lian continue to perform the outward roles of Commander’s wife and General Orderly, tending the gardens and maintaining appearances for people looking in through the gate. Their private relationship remains concealed behind those official roles, with the rules’ habits of not asking and not telling helping sustain the arrangement.

From Personal Code to Institutional Silence

The novel later makes the rule against asking especially consequential. During the couple’s extended time together, Wu Dawang has not wondered what Liu Lian has said to her husband during repeated telephone calls. His devotion to duty has allowed him to block out the question. Only when their return to ordinary life is imminent does he face the matter directly and tell Liu Lian he wants to go home. The rule has spared him anxiety, but it has also left him ignorant of what she has communicated and of the situation awaiting him.

After Wu Dawang returns to the barracks, the Political Instructor receives him with unusual consideration: he offers hot water, scented soap, and a bowl of egg noodles when he learns Wu Dawang has not eaten. In that conversation, Wu Dawang learns that Liu Lian has obtained extended home leave for him, that the Commander has volunteered the Division for a restructuring pilot, and that the Division is to be disbanded. Promotions are cancelled, but the Commander has arranged a city job for Wu Dawang and work for his wife. He is also told not to return to the Commander’s household because the Commander’s temper has become uncertain amid the staff turnover. These are major changes in his life, yet he has not learned them through asking questions; they arrive as information delivered by the institution.

The Captain’s order to tell no one what Wu Dawang has heard or seen extends the logic of the rules from personal conduct to collective secrecy. The Captain warns that disclosure to the Commander would put them all in danger. Wu Dawang returns to barracks still unable to understand the restructuring fully, thinking instead of the benefits he expects from his affair: an honorable discharge and city employment for himself and his wife. The code that began as a soldier’s guide to discretion thus accompanies him into a moment when military roles and prospects are being remade around him.

Significance

The PLA Three Rules of Conduct recur at points where Wu Dawang must decide what information to pursue, what to reveal, and how to interpret orders. Their simplicity helps him advance within the military: he learns the expected answer, performs his assigned work, and becomes a trusted orderly. Yet the same discipline makes him vulnerable to meanings he does not examine, as the “Serve the People!” sign shifts from public emblem to private signal and household service becomes entangled with an undisclosed relationship.

The code’s central irony is that its protection is inseparable from its cost. Wu Dawang’s silence helps keep the affair undiscovered, preserves appearances in the Commander’s household, and leaves him dependent on information supplied by superiors. When the Division faces dissolution, he receives a favorable personal arrangement but does not grasp the larger institutional transformation. The rules remain intact as a habit of conduct even as the organization that gave them meaning changes around him: not asking can be prudent, but it can also leave a soldier without knowledge of the forces deciding his future.