A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the difference of faces of Chinese and American

Abstracts: this article provides the idea that how much the attention payed on face varies from Chinese to American. Addiction to how heavily they attach the importance on face, there are another idea that Chinese contacts face more with fortune and one’s social status, however, American would like to associate the face with more practical aspects such as the actual living standards that could meet the needs of living in t society, the happiness they feel and so on. In other words, Chinese view the face from others’ perspective, if others envy them, they would feel very proud and think that they very have face, which is different from American’s thoughts. For American, they more view the face starting from the aspects of their own situations, in some way, the more happier they feel about their life, the thought that they have face would be stronger. To identify these ideas above, on the one hand, I design some questions to ask the 25 classmates. On the other hand, I read some relevant article and books. I hope that this article could work for the people who are interested in this topic and help more readers to know the difference of the outlooks of face of Chinese and Americans.

Key words: difference face Chinese American identity fortune

“Face” there are not referenced to the organ of human’s organ, but a metaphor. As By extension, anything which is the forward or world-facing part of a system which has internal structure is considered its "face", like the façade of a building. For example, a public relations or press officer might be called the "face" of the organization he or she represents. "Face" is also used metaphorically in a sociological context to refer to reputation or standing in society, particularly Chinese society, and is spoken of as a resource which can be won or lost. Because of the association with individuality, the anonymous person is sometimes referred to as "faceless".[i]

Face refers to the projected image of a person’s self in a relationship network (Ting-Toomey, 1988). It represents an individual’s social position and the prestige that comes from the successful performance of one or more specific social rules that are well organized by other members in the society (Hu, 1944). Positive-face comments praise the performance of roles, but negative-face comments praise the performance of roles, but negative-face comments tend to lower a person’s social standing, or serve to deflect praise. Orientation to the use of face work is reflected in the conflict style a person selects. According to Ting-Toomey(1988),  low-context cultures emphasize “I” identity, self-face concern need, and indirect verbal and nonverbal expression.

  Hwang(1987) indicated that in Chinese society face management is a power game often played by Chinese people. It is not only an important way to show off one’s power, but also a method to manipulate “the allocator’s choices of allocating resources to one’s benefit”（p.962）. Losing one’s face is one of the worst ways to injure one’s self-esteem,  which in turn results in emotional un easiness or serious conflict. Thus, in Chinese society one has to utilize every kind of method to “earn face”（Chu,1983）, and to enhance another’s face（Chiao,1981）. Lastly, Silin(1976) pointed out that the Chinese frequently use the methods to manage a modern social organization, and Pre(1982) indicated that giving face is the key to successful negotiation with the Chinese in business.[ii]

  I designed some question to do the survey about the topic in my class(there are 26 students in my class, we are at the age from 19 to22). Some of us showed the interest on this topic. The questions included

No.1 who do you think pay more attention on face, Chinese or American?

No.2 who do you think associate the face more with one’s social status, Chinese or American?

There are also some other similar or relevant ideas of this topic. For the first question, 18 classmates think that Chinese pay more attention on the so called face. And for the second question, 20 of us think that Chinese associate the face more with one’s society.

  Some people think American having no face.[iii] American would eat before others very awkwardly, such as a piece of awful sandwich, however, few Chinese would do the similar things. Chinese would like to dine together in a luxury restaurant, although they would leave much food after their living, but they feel that they have the big face, however, the deed in the opinion of American is a kind of extremely wasteful behavior.

  Another researcher shows the similar thought with the above one. The Chinese face shows in their social activities,[iv] in my opinions, Chinese feel the face from others’ perspectives rather than themselves. Others praise or envy them. Chinese would feel they have big face, thus sometimes some Chinese would sacrifice some benefits to pretend a kind of appearance to make the people around them to feel that they are excellent. An evident idea is that a student work out a very difficult mathematics problem. If the classmate asked how much time he paying on the question, they would get the false answer which taking much less time. The student feels that he having the right face. Because he make his classmate to believe that he is so clever to work out the mathematics problem in a very short period time. There are many similar situations that just like “live to face death”, which is different from Americans. Americans behave more liking “know whether it is cold or warm by themselves”. Compared to Americans, Chinese prefer to making others know that they have big fortune, while the American do not behave like this.

  In conclusion, Chinese view the face from others’ perspective, if others envy them, they would feel very proud and think that they very have face, which is different from American’s thoughts. For American, they more view the face starting from the aspects of their own situations, in some way, the more happier they feel about their life, the thought that they have face would be stronger.