MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

RSS

12 December 2007

Does anyone have any recommendations for learning more about the Asian/Asian-American concept of "face"? Books (fiction or non), articles, websites, personal thoughts, and anything else would be welcome. [More:] I'd be especially grateful for anything that dealt with the topic specifically with Chinese or Chinese-American populations, adolescents, and/or boys and men.

Everything I'm finding in my psych sources just keeps talking about how it can keep Asian-Americans from seeking counseling, which is helpful knowledge, but I'm trying to find a more real-world "this is how it might influence my outlook" sort of thing. (Though I'm guessing the first part of that is what's keeping me from finding the second part of that...)
Ooh. A few weeks ago I finished reading Foreign Babes in Beijing, and the author talks about the concept of "face" and coming to understand what it means in the book. She doesn't go on about it extensively, but her experiences as an American living in Beijing in the 90s (and starring in a Chinese soap opera) might help you understand it a bit from a Western perspective.
posted by smich 12 December | 14:15
I have no resources, but I'm really curious to know what this concept is. Explain!
posted by mudpuppie 12 December | 14:44
Heh. If I could explain it, why would I be asking the question?

I will bumble around for a bit: As far as I understand it (which I feel is not very far), it's the same basic idea as "losing face" or "saving face" or the sense that you can be in danger of losing the respect of the people around you. It plays a much bigger role in Asian cultures than in Western cultures, however, because of the collectivist orientation of Asian cultures -- it's vitally important to maintain relationships and respect among people, and losing that respect is a major, major thing.

So that encourages certain ways of interacting with others, notably "indirect" communication, in which you don't confront another person if you're upset with them but instead kind of work through the family grapevine so that the appropriate-level person can tell the offending person, indirectly, to stop being offensive. It also tends to encourage a rather patriarchal/hierarchical family structure, in which family members have certain ways they are supposed to act based on gender and age, and deviating from those roles can cause the entire family to lose face.

I'm fearing that's extremely superficial, as well as probably culturally distorted -- like I said, I feel I'm missing a more global understanding of how these ideas function on a daily basis, and something about the collectivist mindset is really so foreign to my own ways of being in the world that I often have a hard time wrapping my head around my own assumptions and understanding what I don't understand.
posted by occhiblu 12 December | 14:54
Google to the rescue. This seems like a good summary of what I've been taught, and reminded me that I left out the importance of group harmony in collectivist cultures, which is part of why the whole thing is important.

So there we have it, face is the societal standing of a person from the perspective, this 'face' thing is all about how others see you, how they percieve your value, status, credibility or social standing. The Chinese terms for face are 'lian' and 'mianzi'.

By understanding face and how to 'give face' one can suceed in negotations and avoid conflict with all egos and relationships intact. As with anything it's always better to give than to take, especially in Asian culture, they are a very respectful and honour based society, so people get higher social standing by 'giving face' left right and centre. It boils down to tread carefully and avoid humilating your opponent, in Western societies, we have thick faces, so we tend to be more sarcastic, less polite and a hell of a lot more open when we criticise..In Asia this is not acceptable, criticism must be done very gently, a lot of ego rubbing is required.

This is known as low-context and high-context cultures... Western countries would tend to be low-context, this means it's an individualistic society, and believes in freedom of the individual. Due to this most verbal communication very often direct, and that there is very little concern about non-verbal cues. So in UK and US for example the right to individuality supercedes any non-logical duty to your family, clan, race, or country. People are direct, they "say what they mean and mean what they say."

High-context countries would be those such as Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, parts of the Middle-East and South America. These would be considered more traditional, hierarchal countries which are referred to as collectivistic, or interdependent.

The main difference is in low-context societies, conflict is normal, it happens, we deal with it, it's nothing special. In high-context societies, it's a big deal, group harmony is paramount. For example people from high-context societies will tend to avoid conflict and in general (Especially Japanese) will rarely utter a full-on 'No'. For us barbaric Westerners, saying 'No' is not a consideration, it's a normal answer to a request or question.
posted by occhiblu 12 December | 15:00
In my experience, the Asian view on "face" can be boiled down to the idea that everything single fucking little thing you do (esp. in public) not only reflects on yourself but also on your entire family. I don't know how to describe it really, it's just this all-pervasive concept that I had to grow up with and probably goes a long way toward explaining the massive contradictions between what I think about my family and how I act around them. Maybe if you have more specific questions that I can work from?

Interesting point: as far as I know there is no term in Chinese for "saving face" - I've only ever heard "losing face".
posted by casarkos 12 December | 15:08
Interesting. Thanks y'all.

Is this sort of tied in to the elaborate etiquette that's part of Japanese culture?
posted by mudpuppie 12 December | 15:18
Maybe if you have more specific questions that I can work from?

Trying to hypothesize how the cultural component would play into high-school bullying (that is, Asian-American kids getting bullied).
posted by occhiblu 12 December | 15:30
Hmm...I would say that AA kids getting bullied might be less likely to report it, out of not wanting the parents to know they've lost face by allowing themselves to be pushed around? If a parent intervened in the bullying the kid would probably see himself as losing face among peers too (even more than that lost from already being bullied, I mean). I doubt the bullies would be aware of enough of the cultural component to actively or deliberately use it.

This is lots of my own hypothesizing - any bullying I encountered in high school was more along the lines of general sexual harassment and catcalling. Didn't tell my parents though, they would've said it meant the boys liked me (wtf no, I had braces and bad hair and dumb clothes, who the hell are you kidding).
posted by casarkos 12 December | 16:25
Managing Turbulent Hearts: A Balinese Formula for Living, by Uni Wikan is a rather dense, yet highly informative anthropological/sociological ethnography. While its scope is limited to south Asia/Oceania, I think, having read it, that it's probably quite applicable. It appears to be out of print, so if you don't want to pay big $$$, try the library at your local liberal arts college.
posted by pieisexactlythree 12 December | 16:47
as far as I know there is no term in Chinese for "saving face" - I've only ever heard "losing face".

But if you want to gain it, hanging out with Bruce Lee has been known to work. This is sort of off topic, but I once saw interviews with and about Jackie Chan, and when he was a wet behind the ears stuntman and extra, Bruce Lee briefly showed up to a bowling alley and hung out with Jackie for a few minutes. That gained him HUGE face since this was at the height of Bruce Lee's popularity in Hong Kong, shortly before his death.
posted by King of Prontopia 12 December | 16:52
Speaking of Jackie, one thing that's always seemed very endearing about his films is that his roles are so self-efacing. He seems to spend at least as much screen time getting seriously PWNED as he does kicking ass.
posted by pieisexactlythree 12 December | 17:00
Whoops, just remembered, Chinese does in fact have the term "retain/leave some face", which I guess is close enough to "saving face", though the grammar sort of puts a different spin on the context for each case.
posted by casarkos 12 December | 17:11
List of novels written by Asian-American authors with Asian-American main characters:

• "Typical American," "Mona in the Promised Land," and "Who's Irish?", all by Gish Jen, all about Chinese-American characters, some first and some second generation; the second novel explicity focuses on an adolescent girl's relationship with her parents, their behavior toward her being explained as a matter of saving/losing face. The first book is entirely about losing face and is an earlier tome abou the same family. And the third is a collection of short stories, some of which may be useful. Jen addresses a lot of 'face' issues. (Note: Face is just a slightly more complicated version of pride, in my experience.)

• "My Year of Meats" by Ruth L. Ozeki. There is a bit in the novel about losing/saving face, involving a character who calls himself John but is actually Japanese and I forget is real name. It's only partly a book about Asian and Asian-American culture, and mostly a book about the mistreatment of women and cows.

• Chang Rae Lee, a Korean-American novelist, dwells quite a bit on this topic. I'd suggest reading "Native Speaker" to start with.

If you're only going to read a few of these, you can either choose for content/relevance or for the writing. If you're going for relevance, take the first two Gish Jen books. If, on the other hand, you particularly hanker for really well-written books by and about Asian-Americans, I'd go with Ozeki and Lee.
posted by brina 12 December | 20:03
brina, I loved "My Year of Meats." Thanks for reminding me of it, and for the other suggestions as well!
posted by occhiblu 12 December | 20:30
These articles might be helpful:

Hwang, Alvin, Soon Ang, and Anne Marie Francesco. 2002. "The Silent Chinese: The Influence of Face and Kiasuism on Student Feedback-Seeking Behaviors." Journal of Management Education. 26:70-98.

Juan Li, Julie and Chenting Su. 2007. "How face influences consumption." International Journal of Market Research. 49:237-256.

Lee, Siew-Peng. 2003. "Managing 'Face', Hygiene and Convenience at a Chinese Funeral in Singapore." Mortality. 8:48-66.

Tjosvold, Dean, Chun Hui, and Haifa Sun. 2004. "Can Chinese Discuss Conflicts Openly? Field and Experimental Studies of Face Dynamics in China." Group Decision and Negotiation. 13:351-373.

These books might be helpful, too:

Chen, Guoming and Ringo Ma, eds. 2001. Chinese Conflict Management and Resolution. Westport, CT: Ablex.

Pan, Yuling. 2000. Politeness in Chinese Face-to-Face Interaction. Stamford, CT: Ablex.

I hope that helps.
posted by halonine 13 December | 01:21
Thanks, halonine!
posted by occhiblu 13 December | 16:20
If I had grown up in the 20's, The Charleston would have been my dance of choice. || Bagpipe Fest in San Francisco

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN