Losing face doesn't make sense to me / can't wrap my head around it

For one I’ve lived in Taiwan for a year before and returned around November. In that time I haven’t observed any of this concept about face I hear other foreigners talking about. There are some specific customs like how to talk to elderly, but all this talk about people openly lying as part of the culture or it being ok to break rules if you don’t get caught all of this are things I’ve only seen on these forums or the usual amount I’d see in America. In fact, it seems like the problem at least in high school is less ok. When I was in American high school, cheating was the norm. I was the weird one for refusing to cheat.

I also don’t understand why people talk about trying to save face. Isn’t the whole reason that losing face is so bad because it’s supposed to act as a sort of social punishment for behaving the “wrong” way (violating social rules and convention)? If someone is behaving in a shameful way, wouldn’t them losing faith be a logical outcome?

Maybe I’m wrong, but it really feels like people are using the concept of 面子 to excuse the bad and or egotistical behavior of individuals. If anything it feels a bit racist to chop it up to culture. (Oh it’s just part of the culture when someone lies, cheats or exploits you).

For example, in America, many bosses will exploit their workers, treat them like commodities. Many salesmen openly lie to you in order to get you to buy things/scam you ECT. But none of these things are part of American culture. They are individuals who break moral codes of conduct and operate counter to the norm of wider society.

I wonder if there’s another layer here we’re all missing. Maybe sub cultures can explain these types of behaviors?

Feel free to educate me and help me understand this better. I’ve tried asking Taiwanese people (the people I know personally) but they just get confused about what I’m talking about.

See also:

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Thanks for these links I’m reading through them now.

I’m still struggling to see how it’s different from western culture, especially older western culture and the American military

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I’ve always thought of it as shame in a Chinese context. It’s more easily triggered and there’s a stronger desire to avoid it and regain face once it’s lost. “Face”, gaining, losing, living without, bringing to one’s group or causing them to lose it, is one concept that covers a range of things is western culture.

The difference with shame is when you feel ashamed about something bad you’ve done it’s not usually combined with extreme resentment towards the person who pointed out the bad thing.

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Thank you for this thread.

I tend to think of this in very simple terms. Many people I met and worked with in Taiwan hate admitting they were wrong…about anything…no matter how small. And alot of the excuses or reactions from those people are clumped into the “saving face” category.

Most are simply accustomed to others not challenging them. Even my wife who is certainly a very good person will upon being challenged will just say the first excuse she thinks of…even if there is no logic behind the excuse. If you ask her what does her excuse A have to do with problem B she has no answer and seems annoyed you would even ask. She might know she was wrong but she does not feel especially pressured to actually admit she was wrong. Someone spotted a problem…just leave the situation alone instead of raising a challenge…that seems to be the norm.

And as for many pampered people in society they were never told they were wrong about anything. Like my sister-in-law…will she ever tell her son he is wrong?..only about 3% of the time. When he was around 11 years old I would see him urinating in public. He would urinate on the plant along side the road outside the grandparents’ house. I mentioned this a couple of times to his mother. She only laughed. I saw him at a park with people walking around urinating on a tree when the bathroom was 50 meters away. She only laughed. I saw him naked outside the bathroom at the grandparents’ house after his shower (yes, the bathroom is in the warehouse but there are 12 people using one bathroom so easy to spot him). I once again mentioned maybe some basic concepts of actions in public areas. She only laughed. I mentioned to my wife who said she told her sister the same thing but she always just laughs. She is simply not going to tell her very studious son he is wrong. Not going to happen. So now that he is grown do you think he accepts criticism easily?

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So you’re saying this is a taiwanese thing? I always saw this as a woman thing because many women I dated or interacted with in the past in America always acted this way.

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No no. This is pretty much a thing across most Asian countries.

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But so everyone agrees that the son peeing is wrong/ strange.

But no one can do anything about it? Or can someone like her father/mother/ ECT. correct her?

There must be some ways to correct behavior in society or else the whole system would just collapse right?

More questions: what would happen if another adult told the child to stop? Would it be like america (considered an overstep)? Would the age of the adult making the correction be a factor (an elderly person)

Best approach is just think water off a duck’s back. I would take the behavior very personally and it would only lead to my frustration.

Some are quick to throw out criticism but can’t take it.

Remember it’s you against 1000s of years of culture and an army of 24 million people.

For my sister-in-law her son’s actions are a very low priority. She does not care very much. Her and her husband mostly only care that her son’s studies. Her son is now soon to be a doctor so they know they were successful. The concept of whether her son is a good person…well, that was not their focus.

Recently, she was discussing her brother’s many affairs while married. She mentioned to her son that her brother was wrong to have affairs. Her son disagreed and so no problem with that.

When people have no one close to them providing a “moral compass” then people just pick up habits and directions randomly from whoever.

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I call it little penis syndrome

If somebody honking their horn at you or giving you the finger makes you “lose face” and feel insecure then you clearly have a small penis

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Is it an overstep as an adult in America to tell a child they shouldn’t pee anywhere but the toilet? Peeing in public/on public property is illegal and enforced in the US. It would be overstep to tell a kid you don’t know they should say “thank you” or tell them they have no manners, but that is social norms vs. straight up “things that will get you fined and possibly end up on a permanent criminal record if you’re the wrong race or someone is having a bad day”.

Just generally though, I quit my job because glaring problems were being ignored and even the labor bureau couldn’t talk sense into them. There was nothing unclear about me leaving having only and exclusively to do with their incompetence and exploitative nature. In the US, you might say something like “things weren’t working out for us” or “I’m leaving for personal reasons” and leave it there. It’s easy to tell anyone asking for details to eff off. Not here. The second our mediation ended, they were spinning an elaborate story that made my leaving have everything to do with my personal life and me meeting my personal needs and that’s why I left. Their need to save face for the company by creating a lie goes WAY beyond what a US business would do. In fact, I could probably sue them for lying about why I left.

This is not actually true the last part I mean, they learn them from others. People will always pick up role models, mimic behavior of those around them along with habits learned in response to their environment (there’s also an element of predisposition as well).
There’s actually quite a lot of research on this, though I do agree there needs to be more of this kind of research in Asia specifically since the social environment would be a significant factor

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SAD is the acronym.

Small $@&:?! Dick.

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While you can never know a person’s inner emotions, it hasn’t been my experience that Asian people who lost face necessarily felt resentment or that Western people don’t. Losing face can trigger a number of emotions depending on the situation. Like shame, it’s complex. If Asian’s more often feel resentment, that’s a result of the cultural environment.

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Really? There are so many examples. I know people who have lost jobs/had their property damaged.

I don’t understand the culture, though, so I don’t want to upset anyone. I’ll leave it at my experiences.

I don’t know if you’re speaking of Western or Asian people as there are examples for both, but examples doesn’t make it an absolute. Face is more complex than simple shame, but shame is part of it. Pride, or the loss of it, is at the heart of it, but pride is the motivation for much of what we do. How one deals with it is informed by the culture.

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I tend to think of this in very simple terms. Many people I met and worked with in Taiwan hate admitting they were wrong…about anything…no matter how small. And alot of the excuses or reactions from those people are clumped into the “saving face” category.

would you say this can also be a conflict they started but don’t ever want to admit they were the actual cause of the conflict? So they can just chalk it up to “it’s the dumb foreigners fault?”

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