Travelers in China often struggle to really understand the cultural concept of “face.” The Eastern idea of “face” is that at ALL times the giving of “face” (making someone look good) must be maximized while the loss of “face” (preventing yourself or others from looking bad) must be minimized. Everyone wants to feel good about themselves and look good (who doesn’t?) to others, so it’s a massive blow to a person’s reputation or self-image if they are brought down. The giving of “face” is especially important towards those older than you, and especially superiors at work.
For example, as an English language teacher, when I spoke to a student in Chinese, he or she might use “nin” when referring to me, although I would use “ni.” The extra “n” at the end displays respect for the person with whom you are speaking, however this is a dying trend. Other examples of giving “face” could be bringing a nice gift to someone who has invited you into their home, something not very common because people tend to meet in public as most homes are usually quite small.
Paying for dinner, can be quite tricky. Meals are paid by one person only, and depending on how you pay, you can be making someone lose “face”! For example, by me paying for four other friends it gives me “face”, but if someone else was the one who did the inviting, he might feel like I made him lose “face”, even though in the West this would not be an issue.
[Ed Note: We heard a story of an executive of Microsoft coming to China to give a speech. At the end of the speech he asked for questions and received none. This speaker was annoyed because he felt as though his audience hadn’t been listening. In fact, the opposite was true! The audience did not want to disrespect the speaker and cause him to lose “face” by asking questions and implying that the speech did not contain all the necessary information.]
“Face” is extremely complicated, and many foreigners living in China tend to struggle with this aspect of Chinese culture and often give up because it is difficult to understand. In reality, people who wish to save “face” can deny their involvement and avoid responsibility and blame underlings, which makes getting things done (or getting justice) difficult. The funny thing is that many people in China assume all cultures give and save “face” like they do, and from my experience many youth are jealous that Westerners don’t have to deal with “face” the way they do.
There have been many times where I caused others to lose “face” and it caused trouble for me and my relationships (called “guanxi,” or “connections”). I realized later what I had done and felt bad for it, but knew I would have an opportunity later to give them “face” to save my own “face”!
It is always good to learn about these cultural differences before visiting a place. I had heard the concept of respect is very important in China, but this sheds a little more light on how things are done.
Absolutely! I pride myself in truly immersing in the local culture, no matter where I am. I wish Americans would try to understand other cultures before demanding that immigrants conform to ours.
Sean this is really interesting, and obviously a very delicate issue worth coming to grips with especially if you are a business man trying to do business in China. Oh just to share a bottle of wine with someone!!
Sharing a drink does seem to always break down barriers! We found the concept of saving face incredibly difficult to deal with in China, partially because we didn’t fully understand it. When we were confronted by it, especially in markets, etc… I admit to being dumbfounded at the logic behind it coming from a culture where questioning is not only sanctioned but encouraged.
The idea of losing/saving face is a tricky one. When I lived in Thailand I dated a Thai guy who already had a girlfriend (unknown to me at the time). All my Thai friends knew, but didn’t want to tell me as they didn’t want me to lose face. Some interesting discussions resulted from it, but my Thai friends still wanted me to break up with him nicely so that he wouldn’t lose face. At this point I wasn’t concerned about him losing face, after being lied to for months, but my Thai friends were embarrassed that I cared so little whether he saved face or not. Definitely a touchy subject to navigate even when you know it exists.
What an interesting story, it really underscores the difference in opinion. Weren’t they concerned about you saving face by breaking up with him instead of allowing him to continue to disrespect you? How did it end up?
To be honest, I tended to ignore face and just be who I was, and it definitely got me into a lot of trouble. I think when I stopped ignoring it was when I truly began growing up. I still despise the idea of face, but I know to be careful about it now.
This is such a fascinating topic. I can understand why some younger folks would feel stifled by the constant pressure to save face, particularly since the loss of face of one person would likely transfer over to their family (in some serious situations). It certainly seems like it would be an effective social tool to maintain order and keep people “in line.”
Anyhow, yeah, it would be very overwhelming to travel to China w/o much knowledge of this custom. I would hate to offend someone without even knowing it!
At some point in China we had to just accept that despite our strongest desires not to, we were offending people without even knowing it.
One aspect of all of this that I find so interesting, is that the idea of community and communal feelings and experiences run so deep. In the West we’re much more focused on an individual and individual shame or pride. It’s easy to see why between the East/West there are so many cultural mis-steps.
Very interesting post! The idea of saving face is different than China and western culture I believe. Here’s what I see is the difference based on the examples you shared. We save face out of pride to keep ourselves from embarrassment. The Chinese save face of of others out of respect. Their concept of it considers others while ours seems to be more about ourselves. Maybe I am wrong.
I agree that we’re much more focused on the individual here in the West. I think we try to not embarass ourselves, but I also think in the West it also swings the other way- I don’t try to embarass others, in fact when I point out something that could be considered embarassing I do it privately or in such a way that it is the least embarassing to the other individual.
It is indeed a complicated culture to learn and understand. It seems easily understandable and forgivable for foreigners who accidentally offends someone but more difficult for us who are of Chinese ancestry and speak the language! We are however, “westernized”, so it’s harder for us when we travel to China because it seems that it is “expected” that we fully know the culture! Talk about pressure!
Interesting perspective! I definitely felt as though we were given a free pass throughout Asia on many cultural faux-pas simply because we were clearly “others”. I had a Chinese-American roommate in college who told me that going to visit her family in HK was a dreadful experience- because they saw her as Chinese and she saw herself as American- two different rules of behavior.
I have a friend who is a Chinese-American and she wrote a novel about the horrors of growing up straddling both cultures (a Chinese family living in America).. you can check it here:
http://www.angelaschoi.com/novels.html
This is very interesting about the saving face aspect of Chinese culture. I’ve always admired the respect that the Chinese show for their elders. I think it’s too bad that using the term of respect “nin” is dying out.
I think the idea of respect across cultures is an interesting one. In the West we’re taught to respect our elders, but “respect” is never really defined. As a child I always thought it meant to obey what they asked of me and not to cause trouble. An Asian perspective of respect is much deeper, I think we could use some of that here!
i don;t think we respect our elders in the West anymore.. I’ve been known to use curse words in front of my grandparents, talk about sex (grandpa, haha), and i got tattoos, which goes against Judaism.. but I do it for ME and what makes me happy.. if that’s disrespecting my elders.. then I guess I do 😀
They are now a consumer economy, and less of a production economy. Like the US did long ago , people are beginning to open their eyes. Factories are moving to Philippines, Indonesia and I believe Brasil. The people of our generation want more comfortable lives with more entertainment and so they focus less in the past. Mao is a figure of no importance, but the elderly and those in power still invoke his name. China’s just an exciting place to be now as they rapidly redefine themselves and plan a hopefully brilliant future.
I think I would struggle with this one – I’ve never been all that good at this kind of formalised sensitivity and tend to be clumsy around it!
Me too! I find myself always second guessing my actions in these kind of situations.
As a Canadian-Chinese, I’m more than familiar and have struggled with straddling the West-East divide. Now that I’m immersed far more in the West, all of this all comes back in a flood when I’m with my folks or when I’m in Hong Kong. It certainly is a different kind of (re)learning experience.
Thanks for your post, Sean!