The Eastern culture of saving face and egoism.

tom_mai78101

The Helper Connoisseur / Ex-MineCraft Host
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The concept of "face," i.e., mianzi, is a very difficult one to explain in a few sentences. It is also impossible to discuss "face" without introducing the related concept of guanxi, i.e., "relationship" or social networking. Nevertheless, these two concepts, and how they are expressed in day-to-day life in China, are absolutely essential for foreigners to understand, prior to their arrival, if they are to avoid numerous misunderstandings and angry blowups.

From a Western perspective, it is very difficult to fully appreciate just how critically important the role of face is in the day-to-day lives of the Chinese. A recent study conducted by the China Youth Daily found that over 93 percent of the 1,150 respondents surveyed admitted that face is very important to them, with 75 percent acknowledging that making a mistake in public was, by far, the most humiliating experience they could ever have (Shan, 2005). In other words, most Chinese will do whatever they can to avoid looking bad in public and that often manifests itself in an unwillingness to openly admit to any wrongdoing, no matter how small or insignificant the error might have been. This phenomenon goes a long way in explaining, for example, why the vast majority of Chinese students are so reluctant to voluntarily participate in class or even during less formal activities such as English corners: The fear of making a mistake in front of others is just too overwhelmingly prohibitive.

According to one Asian scholar, Ting-Toomey (1988), "face" is a "strategy that protects self-respect and individual identity. Face saving activities are the rites that protect the individual's role in the guanxi network, preserving individual identity and social status" (p. 215). What most foreigners simply cannot understand or accept is that, from a Chinese perspective, "lying" to either save or give face is not viewed as a lie at all when it is obvious (to them) that the intent or underlying motivation was never to deceive.

Read more here.
 

KaerfNomekop

Swim, fishies. Swim through the veil of steel.
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These things come so naturally, I didn't even realise how large the difference was until I met a bunch of transfer students from the US. The way westerners do things can be considered very crass to us sometimes.
 
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