" He thought wryly of the current political metaphor, “the two ends are hot and the middle is cold,” a very Chinese way of saying that change was passionately wanted at both the top and the bottom of the society, but sitting squarely in the middle in many areas were Mao’s bureaucrats, threatened by the progressive changes, indignant, clinging in fury to the old status quo. "

― Dorothy Gilman , Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (Mrs. Pollifax, #6)