既当婊子又立牌坊

The company fires a thousand people, posts record profits, and launches a wellness initiative themed “We Take Care of Our Own.” The CEO goes on a podcast to talk about servant leadership.

既当婊子又立牌坊. Being a whore and erecting a chastity arch.

既当婊子又立牌坊 Meaning: A Quick Definition

• Literal meaning: Working as a prostitute while also building a chastity arch — a stone monument that, in Ming and Qing dynasty China, was erected by the imperial government to honor women who remained faithful widows or who died resisting sexual assault.
• Figurative meaning: Profiting from vice while claiming the social rewards of virtue. Wanting two contradictory moral positions simultaneously and refusing to choose between them.
• Tone: Vulgar (the word 婊子 is a strong word for prostitute), morally sharp, and extremely cutting. The proverb is one of the harshest critiques of hypocrisy in any language.
• Modern usage: Calling out hypocrisy in politics, business, and personal life. Applied to culture-war contradictions, corporate double-talk, and individual bad faith.
• English equivalents: “Having your cake and eating it too” (too mild), “talking out of both sides of your mouth” (close, but more about lying than hypocrisy), “the pot calling the kettle black” (different — that’s projection, not self-contradiction).

In one line: 既当婊子又立牌坊 names the specific hypocrisy of profiting from what you publicly condemn.

The Characters

• 既 (jì): Already, both… (introduces the first of two parallel states)
• 当 (dāng): To serve as, work as
• 婊 (biǎo) 子 (zi): Prostitute, whore (strong/vulgar term)
• 又 (yòu): And also, moreover (introduces the second parallel state)
• 立 (lì): To erect, stand up, build
• 牌 (pái) 坊 (fāng): Arch, memorial arch (specifically a chastity arch — 贞节牌坊 — built to honor female chastity)

This is a seven-character folk saying (俗语). The grammatical structure 既…又… (“both… and…”) makes the contradiction between the two halves explicit and unavoidable.

Where It Comes From

The cultural reference requires context for non-Chinese readers. During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties, the Chinese imperial government maintained a system of public honors for female chastity. Women who remained widows without remarrying, who committed suicide to resist rape, or who otherwise demonstrated exceptional sexual fidelity could be nominated by local officials for a chastity honor (旌表). The honored woman’s family received permission to erect a stone paifang (arch) at the entrance to their village or lineage hall — a permanent, public monument to her virtue.

Thousands of these chastity arches still stand in China. They are culturally loaded objects — symbols of a value system that modern China has largely rejected.

The proverb riffs on the physical impossibility of a sex worker erecting a chastity arch for herself. The two social roles are mutually exclusive by definition. The woman who tries to occupy both roles simultaneously is not just hypocritical — she is structurally incoherent, demanding the rewards of two incompatible systems at once.

The Philosophy

The Anatomy of Irreconcilable Hypocrisy

What makes 既当婊子又立牌坊 more pointed than ordinary hypocrisy accusations is its insistence on irreconcilability. The proverb does not say “you do bad things while pretending to be good.” It says “your good and your bad are mutually exclusive by definition, and you are trying to collect the rewards of both.”

This is the proverb’s specific target: not the sinner who hides the sin, but the sinner who publicly demands the rewards of being a saint while continuing to sin openly. The hypocrisy has to be visible and ongoing to qualify.

Why the Proverb Survives

The image endures because the contradictions it names are universal. Every society has its own version of the whore-and-chastity-arch figure:

• The anti-gay politician caught with a same-sex lover
• The diet guru selling detox teas while privately using Ozempic
• The environmental activist flying private to climate conferences
• The “family values” CEO paying alimony to three ex-wives

The Chinese proverb captures this universal figure with a single seven-character image that has no equivalent directness in English.

The Impossibility Argument

There is a philosophical claim embedded in the proverb: some positions cannot be held simultaneously, and attempting to hold them reveals the liar. The chastity arch requires chastity. The whorehouse requires the absence of chastity. The two cannot be combined; one must choose.

Modern relativism sometimes denies this. Maybe there is a way to do both — to profit from vice and claim virtue, with sufficient clever framing. The proverb insists: no. The contradiction is structural, not rhetorical. No amount of framing will reconcile the two.

When Chinese Speakers Use It

Scenario 1: Critiquing corporate hypocrisy

“They fired everyone over fifty and then hosted a ‘Wisdom of Elders’ lunch for the survivors.”

“Jì dāng biǎo zi yòu lì pái fāng.”

Scenario 2: Calling out political double-dealing

“He sponsors anti-gambling legislation while his family owns three casinos.”

“Jì dāng biǎo zi yòu lì pái fāng. Pick a side.”

Scenario 3: Naming personal bad faith

“She sells diet pills on Instagram while posting about body positivity.”

“Jì dāng biǎo zi yòu lì pái fāng. She’s making money on both contradictions.”

In Western Culture

The closest Western parallels:

• “Having your cake and eating it too” — captures wanting two incompatible things, but the contradiction is mild (dessert) rather than moral (vice vs. virtue).
• “Talking out of both sides of your mouth” — captures verbal hypocrisy, not behavioral.
• “Serving God and Mammon” — biblical, captures the moral contradiction, but archaic.
• “The lady doth protest too much” — captures a different form of hypocrisy (overdenial).
• “Holier-than-thou sinner” — captures the figure but is bland.

The Chinese proverb is more cutting than any of these. The combination of bodily directness (婊子) and institutional critique (牌坊) is unmatched in Western idiom.

Tattoo Advice

Absolutely not recommended.

This is the most clearly vulgar proverb in this collection, and it names a moral failure. Inked on skin it would read as either a confession or a deeply confusing joke. Any Chinese viewer would assume the wearer did not understand the phrase.

If you want a tattoo that captures the opposite virtue — moral consistency, refusing to play both sides — consider the single character 诚 (chéng, sincerity / integrity) or the classical phrase 言行一致 (yán xíng yī zhì, “words and actions in unity”).