The concept of Face refers to 2 separate but related beliefs in Chinese social relations for judging conduct — lian and mianzi.
Lian represents the confidence of society in the integrity of a person’s moral character. Mianzi represents social perceptions of a person’s prestige; a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through success and orientation.
It’s imperative for a person to maintain face, as it translates into power and influence, and affects goodwill. A loss of lian could verily result in a loss of trust within a social group, while a loss of mianzi could verily result in a loss of authority. To gossip about a person stealing would cause a loss of lian but not mianzi. Continually interrupting your boss while they’re speaking could cause them a loss of mianzi but not lian.
This is a true story of one man’s journey in China as he experiences some of the little-known cultures within.
read on … China Revealed – The Concept of Face.
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Also: “FACE” – A CULTURAL THING
For those of you not well-versed in Chinese culture, there is something you should know about the concept of face or having face. Stemming from this, there are also the related concepts of losing face, of saving face, and even of lending face.
Face is a concept not hard to understand because, even as Westerners, everyone has face. When equated to Western values, face is very similar to the notion of reputation. Face is a dynamic which applies to both personal and business relationships in China.
Corollary to face is the inseparable concept of guanxi or “relations”. Face and guanxi work hand-in-hand. One without the other renders useless the dynamic these two concepts collectively work together. I will write about guanxi in a separate article.
So, now we will see how face works curiously as a commodity in the business and personal realms…
read on … The Concept of “Face” in Chinese Culture – Yahoo! Voices – voices.yahoo.com.
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Related articles
- http://news.efinancialcareers.com/ca-en/156932/how-an-ancient-chinese-concept-could-save-your-banking-career/?utm_campaign=JS_MC_ADVICE_DAILY&utm_source=AMS_US_ENG&utm_medium=EM_NW
- https://chindia-alert.org/social-cultural-diff/uncanny-similarities/
- East Vs West – A guide to Chinese Culture (hereisbeijing.com)
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