Turning Bricks into Jade
Williams, David / Chao, Julie Haiyan / Wang, Mary / Brislin, Richard W. / Wang, Wei-zhong
The Chinese are fond of using four-character phrases, known as cheng yu, to improve their writing style. The Chinese characters on the cover spell out one such idiom: pao zhuan yin yu. Translated literally, this would be "throw bricks attract jade." It can also express the idea of throwing out something of little value to induce a potential business partner to offer something more valuable.