Grassroots officials have long been troubled by mountains of paperwork and endless meetings.
Tips
usage
Signature phrase of modern Chinese bureaucratic reform rhetoric. Almost always about government offices or state-owned enterprises. Paired verbs: 减少 (reduce), 困扰 (trouble), 整治 (rectify), 深陷 (deeply mired in).
memory
文 (documents) + 山 (mountain) and 会 (meetings) + 海 (sea) - paperwork piled as high as a mountain, meetings spreading out like a sea. Each pair is a scale metaphor for an office nightmare.
