I’m a bit curious about how the concept of face is taught to children. What kind of things are said and who says them(parents, teachers, government officials, etc)
That’s a damn good question.
I’ve often thought the concept of ‘face’ - the apparent inability to critically analyse actions or opinions, admit mistakes and adopt a new, improved approach - will, ultimately, be what restricts the development of any Asian culture (if indeed it hasn’t already).
Having said this, as Westerners should we even suggest to them that there is a better way? I much prefer to let them bumble along believing ‘face’ to be the most important quality an individual can possess 
My guess is that it’s imparted to kids, in part, by simple exposure. Kids see how adults react to “face-losing” circumstances, and learn them to be normal reactions. It may be reinforced by parents and teachers telling them that the person lost face in this situation.
So if the kid says he doesn’t care about losing face, do the parents beat him and demand he take it seriously? Would they state to their kids that face is so important that they should lie to avoid losing face?
“Never lose face, lie to anyone to save face.” " Never take chances. you may lose face. Only follow your boss. you cannot lose face." are things I can imagine kids being told. But that is speculation on my part.
I think it’s just something people absorb from the behavior around them, this is acceptable behavior and this isn’t and to who.
I don’t agree that they’re ‘absorbed’, not initially anyway.
As nonredneck notes, someone, somewhere, is actually teaching these ‘unique’ values to kids, and reinforcing them when they naturally - as kids will - step out of line.
I can understand why these values weren’t changed in the past, but today? What positive value do they bring to Taiwanese / Chinese people? They’re almost all negatives in terms of establishing sound personal relationships within the family, at work and in wider society.
Why continue with a system which perhaps had relevance in the dim and distant past but has absolutely no place in an increasingly transparent world?
So your vast experience of Taiwan leads you to ‘not agree’. You think Taiwanese people actually have time and motivation to teach their kids stuff? :roflmao:
Yes, people absorb the cultural mores around them. It’s not very complex. Driving for instance.
I believe face is taught through circumstances where the child may do something to lose face or cause their parent to lose face. I think the best translation of face would be respect. In western culture we talk about giving respect, losing respect, etc. If you substitute “face” for “respect”, it sounds about the same to me.
Face is about one’s standing and position in society (and smaller groups such as family, friends and colleagues) and the respect one is given, and can expect to be given, and what happens when it is not given.
It’s all about hierarchy so how do children learn this? First at home. This relative is more important than this one, and so deserves different levels of greeting, different levels of hospitality, etc. Big auntie gets walked to her car after a visit while someone else just gets sent to the door. If however, big auntie is ever slighted, the loss of face is so apparent the child cannot help but notice.
A girl will learn her brother is more important than her; a younger brother will learn the older is more important. The older will learn he can’t do anything to make the family lose face. He will be told this directly (I have seen it in many Taiwanese homes).
The child will hear his father complain about his supervisor and how he can’t go over his head because he can’t make him lose face. Mother might say the same about her parents who always interfere in the children’s education. They see that constantly their parents do not challenge those who have a higher standing than them.
Status and standing are not a terribly difficult concepts to grasp so the child soon understands roughly that face is like pride. But it is not exactly the same. Because one can in fact be humiliated and still gain face. An example, from the past, is your lord and master berating you in public. On the one hand you are humiliated. On the other you gain face in the community because everyone recognizes that you must be important enough for this great man to even notice you and to have given you a task important enough to raise his anger when it was done improperly.
Children are also taught that status heavily depends upon outward gestures and possessions. They learn that everyone respects you if you have a nice car, and a big house. They learn, in Taiwan, that if you have a PhD from a good western uni you are going to be listened to.
Children learn this everywhere of course but in most western societies there is a counter-narrative: that this is superficial, petty, childish, and true worth comes from within.
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If we could still recommend posts, I’d have to recommend Mucha Man’s post as it was very enlightening. Now I know I’ve made all of my previous bosses lose face constantly. Oops.
Learning about losing face probably comes from the degree of shaming others automatically respond with when someone - especially a young, impressionable child - makes a certain type of social mistake. Kids get embarassed when people respond to them a certain way, i.e. scornfulness. They internalize this automatically. Certain cultures are more prone to reflexively laughing at people. When a “guffawing” culture is also quite group oriented, then it is usually a face-based culture. Staus in the group is all important and being guffawed at diminshes that. Once the whole avoidance reaction becomes internalized in a mature adult, it is almost impossible to bypass because shame is an emotion we tend to try very very hard to avoid.
Actually, there is no great mystery how any cultural trait is passed along. A more interesting thing perhaps is how it came about in the first place.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]Face is about one’s standing and position in society (and smaller groups such as family, friends and colleagues) and the respect one is given, and can expect to be given, and what happens when it is not given.
It’s all about hierarchy so how do children learn this? First at home. This relative is more important than this one, and so deserves different levels of greeting, different levels of hospitality, etc. Big auntie gets walked to her car after a visit while someone else just gets sent to the door. If however, big auntie is ever slighted, the loss of face is so apparent the child cannot help but notice.
A girl will learn her brother is more important than her; a younger brother will learn the older is more important. The older will learn he can’t do anything to make the family lose face. He will be told this directly (I have seen it in many Taiwanese homes).
The child will hear his father complain about his supervisor and how he can’t go over his head because he can’t make him lose face. Mother might say the same about her parents who always interfere in the children’s education. They see that constantly their parents do not challenge those who have a higher standing than them.
Status and standing are not a terribly difficult concepts to grasp so the child soon understands roughly that face is like pride. But it is not exactly the same. Because one can in fact be humiliated and still gain face. An example, from the past, is your lord and master berating you in public. On the one hand you are humiliated. On the other you gain face in the community because everyone recognizes that you must be important enough for this great man to even notice you and to have given you a task important enough to raise his anger when it was done improperly.
Children are also taught that status heavily depends upon outward gestures and possessions. They learn that everyone respects you if you have a nice car, and a big house. They learn, in Taiwan, that if you have a PhD from a good western uni you are going to be listened to.
Children learn this everywhere of course but in most western societies there is a counter-narrative: that this is superficial, petty, childish, and true worth comes from within.[/quote]
Most useful. I didn’t quite think about the relationship between face and status when I asked the question, but that is a very good point. The two are related. Your comment about the parents directly telling the older son not to make the family lose face is probably the most useful post in this thread. While other posters have commented that there is some cultural absorption, I would think that some of it must be taught at home by parents. Like you pointed out, it begins at home and then expands to the wider society after they start maturing. The children have been primed by the parents at home to care about face and that carries over into the wider culture, where it is reinforced.
Chinese families teach these concepts to the kids in the same way as the western families teach values, morality. In western cultures parents teach respect, political correctness, high school kids learn not to be ‘’ jerks’’, not to say inappropriate or inconsiderate words, sometimes the rich families send their children to some finishing/etiquette school.
While I appreciate the insighfulness of Mucha Man’s remarks, I don’t think face is always about rank. It can also be about looking like a dumbass or loser in front of one’s peers.
“She’s the kind of girl who puts you down when friends are there; you feel the fool…”
[quote=“BigJohn”]
Actually, there is no great mystery how any cultural trait is passed along. A more interesting thing perhaps is how it came about in the first place.[/quote]
More like how this low-life, primitive peasant type of thinking has continued to survive.
[quote=“gavmasterflash”][quote=“BigJohn”]
Actually, there is no great mystery how any cultural trait is passed along. A more interesting thing perhaps is how it came about in the first place.[/quote]
More like how this low-life, primitive peasant type of thinking has continued to survive.[/quote]
Are you talking about FOX news and the Tea Party?
To the extent that a culture is meritocratic, that’s the same thing.
A shame-based culture is a repressed culture. The individual is reduced to a mere cell in society. In the west, leftists resort to bullying and shaming tactics to marginalize those who don’t toe the line. There are entire organizations where loyalty and virtue signaling outweigh considerations of competence. For example, the US State Department.
The way to defeat this is refuse to accept their judgment. Once you see through it, it loses much of its power. The next step is to build relationships with people who judge you only on the basis of competence and trustworthiness.