‘The other shoe has finally dropped’ — Phrase of the Week
The 7.12 billion yuan fine for Ant Group brings an end to years of uncertainty.
Our Phrase of the Week is: The other shoe has finally dropped (靴子落地 xuēzi luòdì).
The context
Chinese authorities announced last Friday a 7.12 billion yuan ($984 million) fine for Ant Group, the fintech spin-off of internet giant Alibaba. This ends a yearslong regulatory overhaul of the company and is an important step to concluding a crackdown on China’s internet sector.
The penalty is the third-largest fine for an internet company ever in China, after the 18.3 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) fine imposed on Alibaba, and the 8 billion yuan ($1.28 billion) fine imposed on Didi Chuxing.
In what looked like a carefully orchestrated media plan, Ant Group responded to the government announcement with a statement:
We will comply with the terms of the penalty in all earnestness and sincerity and continue to further enhance our compliance and governance.
对收到的处罚决定书诚恳接受、坚决服从，并将进一步夯实合规治理水平。
Duì shōudào de chǔfá juédìngshū chéngkěn jiēshòu, jiānjué fúcóng, bìng jiāng jìnyíbù hāngshí héguī zhìlǐshuǐpíng.
U.S.-listed shares in Ant’s affiliate, ecommerce giant Alibaba Group, rose 9% after the announcement. Earlier in the day, its Hong Kong shares had jumped by 6.4% before losing some gains by the end of the day.
Financial markets commentators in China suggested this jump in share price is not unexpected:
The Chinese internet industry may usher in new development opportunities after Ant’s other shoe has finally dropped.
中国互联网产业或许将在蚂蚁靴子落地后，迎来新的发展机会。
Zhōngguó hùliánwǎng chǎnyè huòxǔ jiāng zài mǎyǐ xuēzi luòdì hòu, yínglái xīn de fāzhǎn jīhuì.
And with that, we have our Phrase of the Week.
What it means
The other shoe has finally dropped is a common four-character phrase used in conversations about China’s financial markets. The other boot (另一只靴子 lìng yì zhī xuēzi) is another way to say the same thing.
The Chinese phrase probably originated from the American idiom waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This became popular at the turn of the 20th century, originating in the New York tenements. Usually poorly constructed, tenements were crowded apartment buildings where a resident could clearly hear an upstairs neighbor dropping their shoes on the floor as they took them off at night: first one, then the other.
In modern English, the idiom means to wait for something inevitable — and usually bad — to happen.
In Chinese, the phrase the other shoe has finally dropped was first used to describe the financial markets after aggressive policy reforms were imposed by regulators in 2001. Well-known investor Zōu Guāngyǔ 邹光宇 described the sentiment at the time as:
Investors nationwide await the other boot to drop.
全国股民等待另一只靴子落下。
Quánguó gǔmín děngdài lìng yì zhī xuēzi luòxià.
In other words, investors were anxious that there was more to come.
Since then, the phrase has come to mean bringing investor angst to a head, or calming market nerves when something inevitable finally happens.
For Ant Group, its 7.12 billion yuan fine has signaled to investors that its yearslong rectification has finally been concluded and that future prospects are looking up.
