Reply to a Comment on Face (面子)

I read a comment on hacker news about hong kong protest. There was a comment on the concept of face. I want to give my take on this concept and its origin.

Growing up in the suburbs of California, I never really understood just how central the concept of face was in Asian society until visiting China and seeing it for myself.
Over time I’ve come to realize that many of these social concepts exists in some form or another across all cultures, likely implicit in some part to the human condition, but it still surprises me to this day just how entrenched it still is in certain areas.

I’ve always been personally curious as to what the causes of these divergences in culture between different societies are. There must be some inciting reason that such a stark difference in communication exists.

The saving face in Chinese culture is a result of ancient fear of being prosecuted and cohenrence of society.

If we use the face concept to understand the American culture, then, we see that is opposite in that who have need to save face. American leaders don’t save face. On the contrary, they are are losing face constantly. In American culture, it is the strong that endures humiliation. It is the opposite in the Chinese culture, the more powerful one is, the more one avoids losing face. Losing face in Chinese culture is considered a weak characteristic.

The reason for this opposite culture is because of difference in power distribution of two countries. Chinese society is highly concentrated in state power. The fear of being punished is stronger. Hence, the guilt induced by losing face. Fundamentally, losing face is a fear: the fear of being alone, and being attacked by the majority; the fear of being abandoned, and redicued. This is an ancient fear in Chinese culture. The American culture, on the other hand, is two struggling powers: the state power and the individual power. The rising of Donald Trump is a rebelion against the state power. The is a sign of individual power triumphs over the power of the state. Individual power is the power of ordinary people is an embarrassemnt to the power of the state. Individual has less fear of the state power. As a result, the losing face is less of a threat.