“So-So” is NO-NO
China is a developing country and will remain a developing country so long as the national standard (excuse) for poor services and poor products is “This is China, so-so is ok.”
From sales clerks in department stores, to policemen on the street, to medical staff in the best hospitals, service is extremely poor, the result of apathy, indifference, and incompetence. Nobody seems to care.
Goods and products are substandard and even defective but no one complains. Chinese people have learned that complaining brings you personal trouble.
Most Chinese do not want to excel or stand out. They would rather be lost in a crowd than recognized for excellence. Criticism is expected but compliments are taboo and considered embarrassing.
“FACE” is the most prized possession. Chinese do not realize that FACE is simply false pride and has no real time value or that it in fact inhibits personal growth and development. It is not good to lose FACE (be embarrassed) or to cause someone else to lose FACE. Take FACE to Starbucks and see what it will buy. NOTHING!
Take FACE to class and refuse to participate for fear of making mistakes and losing FACE. There will be no educational progress.
Conclusion
This article has developed the argument that the influence of face in classroom interactions is pervasive, complex and powerful among Chinese, illustrated here in a UK university. The concept of face enables us to account for much Chinese behavior in the classroom setting. The four types of face-related factors: low-risk face, collective face, hierarchical face and harmonious face, which are clearly demonstrated in the three Chinese participants in this study, revealed their effectiveness in preventing the active participation of the three Chinese in the classroom activities regardless of their linguistic abilities. The dynamics of the concern for face revealed in this study has confirmed the findings of Chang and Holt (1994), Gao (1996) and Hwang (1987) concerning the face issue among Chinese in settings other than the
classroom. To cite this Article Wu, Xiaoxin(2009) ‘The dynamics of Chinese face mechanisms and classroom behavior: a case study’, Evaluation & Research in Education, 22: 2, 87 — 105
The above article is available to SYSU students on Professor Wolff’s university page.
http://engedu.sysu.org.cn/graduate/holistics/index2.html
The “collective face” retards China’s development. “So-So” is non-confrontational and allows everyone to maintain FACE. But it also insures that services and goods remain at the poorest common denominator, poor.
FACE is a direct consequence of the socialist society that criticizes and even punishes anyone who achieves, excels or stands out, but rewards those who blend in or melt into the crowd. So-So becomes the social standard, although it is a standard of mediocrity.
China’s educational system is a direct product of this collective face mentality. It fuels the test taking mentality and the chalk and talk pedagogy. Every student is required to memorize the exact same answer to each and every question. No one is allowed to think or act differently. Everyone is a robot with programmed thoughts and memorized answers and no one loses FACE. For all to succeed and not lose FACE, the regimen must be at the lowest common denominator.
A BEAUTIFUL MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!
So long as FACE is a prized possession, China will remain a developing country. FACE predestines failure, it does not foster success.
JUST SAY “NO-NO” TO “SO-SO.”
I am married to a Chinese citizen and that fact has helped me understand some features of Chinese culture, although I do not think I will live enough to learn it all… hehe!
Chinese do not lose face. If necessary they openly lie to keep it. As an example, every time I return to China from abroad, I need to go to the police precinct and inform them so they update their records. The procedure is very simple, everything is in their computer, etc. Well, last time there was a new police officer on duty and she did not know how to operate the system properly. She kept phoning her boss on the mobile and got instructions. She was pretty embarrassed, of course. When she finished, some 45 minutes later, she simply told me they had changed the whole system and the system was not responding properly… Obviously, not true. I could see the screen and it was the very old system as always.
“This is China” is used for everything they do not want to change. Status quo is a god in this country and resistance to change is a must. People accept it naturally: the elderly think there have been too many changes and they cannot cope well with them; the young people are just focusing on making money and careers. Services are poor and will continue like that because, in addition to the fact that complaining brings trouble, consumers do not have any reference (except worse ones) to cling to. In a Western country, if you go to a store to buy a TV set, the time consumed is basically the time to choose the model you want. Here in China buying a TV set is an event! It takes you more than an hour until vendors manage to fill out an invoice and you pay for it. However, all of this is embedded in a millenarian “no hurry” culture. Crowding and waiting is absolutely natural.
Differently from people elsewhere, Chinese workers do not work for themselves and to make their companies better. They just work to please their bosses. Ass-kissing is the national sports and they are good at playing it. Once boss is happy — and they never are! — everything will be good. However, things are never good but people do not know what good means because standards are diffuse. In their inner circles and homes, however, I would say the Chinese people enjoy life somehow.
I particularly love this country and its people. I have traveled half of it already and I do not regret having moved over here. I only regret I did not come here earlier in my life.
I also think face is harmful to learn English. Take face to class and refuse to participate for fear of making mistakes and losing face. If we do that, one day, we will lose English.
However, in my opinion, in fact, FACE is not everything and everywhere in china.
I really don’t know what to say. “Face” is much too important in China, this article found the quite problem of our Chinese. But as we all know that every coin has two sides, one is good for us and the other maybe not. During the 5000 years of Chinese history, people pay a lot of attention to courtesy and polite. Face is the very part of these courtesy and polite. So if you want to change this situation, you will be headache for a long time. Besides this, I think there are some other reasons for the ‘timid’ students to open their mouth in the oral English class. Someone is always thinking about to be the best, so every time he will think again and again about the words before speaking out; someone maybe just too nervous to talk. There are still some reasons. All I want to say is that Face is not a simple problem.
“FACE” seems is a hot topic, both chinese and foreign people are talking about it in recent years. Most of people think that if we care too much about the face thing, it will prevent us to do many useful things, especially in language study. When chinese students learning English, including me, afraid to open our mouths to speak it out. Because we don’t want to make mistakes, and are laughed by other people, at last, lose our face. In teachers’ mind, this is really a big problem. In fact, this really has bad effect in our English studying.
I should agree with that face is very important in China.Face is a conventional culture in China.We do many things because of face.For example,we always like to pay foy others when having lunch together,I rarely speak English because I’m afraid of loosing my face,I think others would laugh at me if I make mistakes…..I think so,many others think so.So we shut up and refuse to practice it.Even if I want to improve my speaking English,I would not like to change.I think this atitude is not proper now.
EDITOR’S NOTE: OBVIOUSLY YOU DID NOT FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND DRAFT THIS POST IN WORD. YOUR ARROGANCE WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL.
I don’t agree the conclusion saying that”FACE predestines failure, it does not foster success” It’s true that FACE might caused some problems but people cannot just simply deny it for such stupid and naive reasons!FACE has its root in Chinese culture with quite complex reasons.As I keep my critical opinion about western’s open and direct,because it is the tradition,those who all ways talk about failures of Chinese culture should make their conclusion more reasonable.
THIS IS WHAT YOUR POST WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE IF YOU HAD FOLLOWED INSTRUCTIONS:
I don’t agree the conclusion saying that “FACE predestines failure, it does not foster success” It’s true that FACE might cause some problems but people cannot just simply deny it for such stupid and naive reasons! FACE has its root in Chinese culture with quite complex reasons. As I keep my critical opinion about western’s open and direct, because it is the tradition, those who all ways talk about failures of Chinese culture should make their conclusion more reasonable.
YOU ALSO SENT AN EMAIL:
Firstly,I do write my comments in WORD and post it after checked it.I think my spelling is good enough to write most of the words in a right way.And I’m not sure it would be really usefull to ask a classmate for help with check my comment,because he/she might make more mistake than me!
ARE YOU AN UNREACHABLE AND UNTEACHABLE STUDENT?
HAD YOU READ THE ARTICLE YOU WOULD NOT HAVE HURLED A NOT SO THINLY VEILED INSULT AT YOUR FOREIGN PROFESSOR. THE ARTICLE IS WRITTEN BY A CHINESE SCHOLAR WHO HAS STUDIED THE ISSUE. YOUR NATIONALISTIC PRIDE IS MISPLACED.
As the author say , so long as FACE is a prized possession, China will remain a developing country. FACE predestines failure, it does not foster success. When we Chinese study enlish ,we are afraid to loose our face, for this reason ,we can not reach the success . how to solve this problem, i think students in our oral enlish should transfer our respectives in learning forergn language, we should open our mouth and talk about something with our classmate loudly. Without fear to lose our face, and we will get progress in our learning enlish.
I think “face” is a culture phenomenon, the special culture in China. And it can’t be explained in one sentence. In the classroom, most Chinese students choose to be silent just because they obey the Middle-Way. Some is really shy but some think there is no need to show. It is too hard to change this situation. However, in your class, everyone will try to be active by your encouragement.
“I like losing face!”,said LiYang several years ago.As we know,LiYang is a brave man who would like to speak English loudly at any proper place .As a result,he is very good at English.Then his story is known to most of Chinese.As a matter of fact,he makes an good example for a lot of Chinese who want to speak English well.In my opinion,it is true that studying English well is not an easy thing.First of all,you should make a hard decision to change the bad situation if you really want to improve your English.And then you have to creat English speaking environment by yourself and for yourself.You are required to not be afraid of making mistakes when spesking English.In fact,I think,you will be envied instead of being laughed at if you are brave enough to speak English loudly. So do not be afraid of losing face!Actually it makes no sense!
“Face” is an important thing to Chinese people. Sometimes you want to do something, maybe there are some others who will say” don’t do it, you’ll lose your face”, then you begin to consider the problem of your face and you will do nothing. We Chinese always say “keep your face and don’t lose it”, but as last we will find we lose our face. Why not lose our face at first and at last we get our face back? During this process we may find we will learn something more.
FAILED TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS
As a Chinese, I must coffess that face is very important in China. No matter where you are, you may have this feeling. Sometimes, I’m embarrassed by the people who love their faces so much though I think I’m also a face lover. I went to Beijing on my last summer holiday. People there always think that they have “big” face than people elsewhere. Even the cleaners or the waiters may consider that face is the most prized possession. And provincial do not have a qualification to make them lose faces. As a student, I’m used to be the so-so one. Because I’m also afraid to lose face though I realize that face has no real time value. I think I need some time to change my mind and my behavior. I just wish that it’ll not too late for me to conquer the difficulties and set me free from losing face. Now I have the chance, why not make my choice?
CORRECTED BY WORD
As a Chinese, I must confess that face is very important in China. No matter where you are, you may have this feeling. Sometimes, I’m embarrassed by the people who love their faces so much though I think I’m also a face lover. I went to Beijing on my last summer holiday. People there always think that they have “big” face than people elsewhere. Even the cleaners or the waiters may consider that face is the most prized possession. And provincial do not have a qualification to make them lose faces. As a student, I’m used to be the so-so one. Because I’m also afraid to lose face though I realize that face has no real time value. I think I need some time to change my mind and my behavior. I just wish that it’ll not too late for me to conquer the difficulties and set me free from losing face. Now I have the chance, why not make my choice?
“Face”is really a prized possession in our culture.We behave as polite men in our daily life.But in a lot of circumstances,we play a hypocritical role just because we do not want to offend others;we never complain the poor services because no one will care.So we always say that”还好”，as if everything is just ok.That is really a problem.In some degree,we are the victims of our faces.Learning a laguage is a hard work for our adults.I always wonder that why baby can learn language much faster than adults.I think the answer and the truth is that babies like to imitate and never dread whether there will be strange eyes on them or mock toward them.So they create a free environment for themselves.We need to overcome the attitude of being afraid to make mistakes.We need to abandon our face sometimes if we want to master a language.Just do it and never lose courage.Being outstanding is nothing wrong,and there is no necessary to be a “so-so” man in our life.We will be a failure if we never do the first step.We will be a coward under the so-called “face”.
Every country has its own way to deal with “face”.Chineses is just the right sample.We cannot say whose way is good,or whose is not so good.After all,we are in China now!When we are accepting new things,we should respect our own custom.I agree that Chinese education has some big problems in teaching English,many students are too shy to say it aloud.Now,I realize face will not make me forward in studying English.For me,I choose to throw away my “face”in the class,but also do not forget Chinese own culture.
“They would rather be lost in a crowd than recognized for excellence.” That’s the right satiation I have in the past years at school. If you want to make life a different way, here I mean English studying, you should change your attitude to it. That’s what I will do this semester. No fear of losing face, follow your instruction strictly and participate in all class activities for a change in my oral English. I don’t want ‘so-so’!
I was confused when you said “leave your face in dormitory”, but soon I understood that it is your conclusion reached by so many years teaching career in China and I have to confess, in the studying part, “losing face is not terrible, what’s more terrible is you do not have the courage to make mistakes.” Sometimes, someone often fall in a dilemma whether to go forward or to wait still. Afraid of losing face, however, may have some power to constrain you from doing something harmful to the society, but it is no need to do this to protect the ignorance.
First and foremost, we cannot deny that “face” cultural did exist in china, we can see it everywhere——from cities to rural areas, from the official to the civilian population, from adults to babies. In fact, we grew up in this face-saying culture. For one thing, when we acquire high scores or pass the entrance-examination to the excellent schools, our parents used to be the happiest ones and they may feel good for having “face”, although there are some other reasons. For another thing, when the children make some mistakes or else bad things, the words that many parents may say will be ”You really disgrace my face”. Perhaps there may be some good impacts according to “face”, such as preventing someone from doing wrong things for fear of losing face and so on. However, for fear of shame, we will not dare to try; for fear of losing face, we give up the chances to succeed; at last, we did miss a lot.
If we deal with FACE as a problem that just belongs to Chinese society and culture while other countries and areas don’t, such a view means Cultural Essentialism too much. The concept of Cultural Essentialism means that it‘s unique and never change that we are considering the particular behavior, special regulations, and the attitude toward the world which are just appearing in Chinese today. Such way we observe Chinese culture would make a mistake that we ignore that the same phenomenon would occur in other countries, such as FACE in Japan. However, Japanese FACE will lose when they don’t success in reaching a high standard or quality of productions, or breaking the social rules, according to the event of TOYOTA in the present days. The root of Japanese FACE is collective interests and self-discipline while Chinese FACE is selfish and lack of self-reflection. For example, the events of poisonous food have happened continually but the government just wants to cover the truths and makes a joke that Hainan province critics Guangdong not to give their Face when the Medias report the poisonous beans discovered in Guangdong.
I just wonder why there is a different between China and Japan which are both value FACE as an importance element in social life. At the same time, I hardly understand that the defense about FACE is not from facts but just from a concept.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended an art activity about Women’s Day. After visiting the “Female Family Tree”, the main part of the activity, we watched a documentary together. The film documented the six years’ struggle of some compelled relocated households. After showing, the director shared some information with us. She said, in London, relocated households absolutely would not be compelled to move. On the contrary, they could obtain a reasonable sum of money, as well as a suitable new residence. However, some British still felt unfairly, complaining that their neighborhood had been destroyed.
Such a complaint seems to be unthinkable in China. As it is known to all, in China, on many things, “so-so” is ok. According to the documentary, households only claimed compensation for the house and a new job. They were not aware of appealing something in spirit, for instance, their neighborhood. That is too luxury. As it was said in the above article, Chinese people have learned that complaining brings you personal trouble. Maybe nobody believes that the government will satisfy all the requirements of the households. So if the struggle can bring back a “so-so” compensation, it will be “enough”.
Every country have their own condition, in china, a lot of things will relation to the face. Although the face is very important, I think when we learn something we need not to care much about the problem of face, don’t embarrassed by you face, when you are not a successor, you are not necessary to worry about you face, just make yourself to become a successor, then when you are a successor you will have a face naturally.
I should apologize to my dear oral English professor for my two mistakes:
I should not post my comment by write it directly on the page even though I just emailed before my posting and saying hat I didn’t write directly on page.
I should notice that my comment is not aiming at my professor Martin Wolff. He is a friendly and strict professor and I like him. And my comment is not aiming at any foreigners.
My emotion in some of the sentences may hurt their feelings,but it is not my willing.I apologize for this.
Actually,this article made me think more about our culture.Questions caused by the FACE topic is complex,interesting and puzzling. FACE really caused many problems,like in learning English. But I still don’t agree with the article and judged FACE totally as a bad thing. There must be more things behind FACE.FACE is the appearance. But what is the reason for FACE? FACE appeared in China for such a long time.What’s the relationship between FACE and Chinese culture?
I think I should send my suggestion to those Chinese scholars. They always have lots of views like this.They often point out phenomenon, but few of them do deeper research on it. It’s bad and just like says in the article,they leave the problem with SO-SO ending.Chinese have been criticizing themselves for quite a long time.We changed our traditonal clothes,changed our traditional Chinese characters into simplified Chinese characters ,etc. Predecessors did this and made our country developed quite a lot in economic.But the big change also made us lost many old things. A simple example is people the same age as me,we do not understand writings in classical Chinese.Reading classical Chinese is as difficult as reading in English,maybe more difficult than English.
That is what FACE caused me to think about. It really puzzled me.
Face is a conventional culture in China and Face is an important thing to chinese people.I do not agree with that is not good.In China we keep our critical opinion about western’s open and direct, because it is the tradition, those who all ways talk about failures of Chinese culture should make their conclusion more reasonable.maybe foreign students can not understand the FACE,it is not a simple thing.
SUSAN SHIRK’s book , published in 2007,revealed a “So-So” china to the world. Though some scholars view it as a variation of the tone Chinese threat opinion, what could not be denied is that serious problems existed in both economic reform and social ills.
Just as you said : “Chinese always respond－This is China, so-so is ok”, which choose to keep “face ”outside but refuse to progress actually.
“Face” is important and complex for each Chinese, which has been growing in the special culture in China. In my opinion, a simple sentence or such words like “simple false pride” can not exactly explain the phenomenon. In some ways, most Chinese have confused the dignity and the “face”. We can clearly realized that “Face” had brought many problems and disaster in china from Chinese history. Because of “Face”, the Ch’ing or Manchu Dynasty didn’t recognize the fact of other countries’ development, the Ch’ing rested on their laurels, the final result was to come to an end. Besides, in our daily life, many people still have the mind of “Face”, and the mind also bring many problems to their lives.
Face is so important in Chinese ,this is our traditional culture ,as we know ,in Asia ,our traditional culture is east culture ,our society logic is society more important than personal ,so we feel very uncomfortable when we do something that may let our family members fee bad ,this is our culture ,we are bring up in this culture ,so we look our face very important ,this is not our fault ,that is our traditional culture .In the future ,world is contact with as a small country ,we should do something following the world rules ,only on this ,we Chinese can do right things in the foreigner eyes !
Every country has its own long-ingrained cultural. in the global time, with China becoming more and more open, I do believe that FACE is a big obstacle to attracting more foreigners and more investments. But it’s impossible to change it at once. However, China are doing its best to be a big open country. As time goes by, I’m confident that all Chinese will become international and improve our quality of services and goods.
Face is an important part of Chinese culture, it is rooted in Confucianisman and has a long history. After China’s open up, we do see the negative effects of Face. Most of the problems stated in the article do exist in China, but it is partly controversial. It is obvious that China has made significant progress in recent years. Its products are not always labelled with poor quality. Taking Haier as an example, it is a Chinese brand which has high quality. The poor quality of products cannot be totally attributed to a “so-so” point of view.There are other reasons, such as its lag in science and technology. However, China is making rapid progress in many fields. We shall see a brand new China getting rid of the “so-so” problem.
“Face problem” is really an issue related with lots of phenomenon in China. There’s an old saying “Men live with faces and trees live with skins” (I’m not sure if I translated it correctly), then we can see how important face is to the Chinese. Yes it maybe very difficult to understand what the face worth. It can by nothing. But I always regard it as a part of Chinese traditional culture, a Chinese understanding of both “pride” and “disgrace”. Sometimes it indeed has some bad effects on our ways of doing things, but not always so bad, I think. Sometimes it may encourage us to work harder because we want to “gain face”, sometimes it may even be the power of conquering difficulties because we don’t want to “lose face”. So since it’s our culture, I believe just avoiding it is not the best choice. Making use of the positive part of it may be much better.
Comments to “So-So” is NO-NO
Firstly, as you pointed out in your essay, china is still a developing country and will remain a developing country in a long time. China Product may stand for inferior commodity according to someone’ view. At the same time, however, it seems to be no need to extend to correlate that with the attitudes of Chinese, such as indifference and apathy. it is no doubt that Chinese enterprises are eager to manufacture products with high quality to compete with their counterpart abroad. Unfortunately, under the current system of international division of labor, Chinese enterprises just occupy the low-side industry including toy, clothes and so on because of weak technology foundation. It is a natural process of development for a country, years ago people also criticized that Japan products are saturated with inferior goods even a U.S. senator smashed the television made by Toshiba in front of media in 1960s. No longer than 20 years, Japan products represent the highest level and have nothing with low quality. Nowadays, china is undertaking the transformation similar to what happened in Japan about 30 years ago.
Admittedly, Chinese Emphasize so importance on “face” that even their creativity may be hindered by their “face”. This is a culture phenomenon in the countries who share philosophy of the Confucian school which stresses on etiquette and respect the aged. Namely, “face” should not be the consequence of socialist society because of it existing thousand years before the rise of socialist campaign. What’s more, it is inappropriate to amount Chinese social standard to a standard of mediocrity for that students in china are also inspired to challenge their tutor’ academic views. However, they may not like to point it out and shout “professor, you are wrong!” instead they may tell him after class out of respect.
Finally, “face” might be one reason for students’ failure of speaking out in their speaking lesson. For most of them, speaking English is little helpful to get a scholarship even to get a job, so they just spend less time on it.
I think our chinese people like saying ” so-so ” which is coming from our traditional culture in Confucianism but is not concerned about face-saving. For one thing, being fear of losing face indeed makes us droping many chances to develop further. For another thing, I don’t agree that “face” is completely a bad thing. Exactly because of face our society could become harmony and stability, and we could show consideration for others. So that our chinese people could keep a solidarity all the time when whatever happened disregarding home and abroad.
First of all, what is the concept of “face”? In my opinion, I, in the main, agree with Edward’s idea. Maybe different “face” bases on different culture. Therefore, we should try to understand and respect other’s idea and culture. The Chinese “face” does have its own special meaning for Chinese people, but it is not a reasonable excuse that some one can feel shy while practicing English. Therefore, I also agree that “Take FACE to class and refuse to participate for fear of making mistakes and losing FACE. There will be no educational progress.”
“Face culture” is a specific product in a specific culture in history, which is still wandering in the modern china while china have been undergoing the process of transformation with the policy of reform and openness. Indeed, “face culture” has its own value for the social interactions in a specific age, but modern society is a “stranger-world”, and the business culture cares about interest instead of face. More importantly, just like what professor writes, “Everyone is a robot with programmed thoughts and memorized answers and no one loses FACE”, where face has become a symbol of repression of personality or individuality, which in today’s china is very precious and rare. Many excellent intellectuals in china have reflected this bad habit rooted in Chinese and have given their thoughts for advance. We could find a long list of such figures in the last century. However, it seems that it doesn’t work. People today live in modern china, but seems to still think and behave like in ancient china. What a serious things! It’s everyone’s responsibility to reflect our own traditional culture in china today. Social transformation calls for not only the modern technology but the civil minds, at the same time. Only by collective recognition and reflection can we make progress in social custom.
Many Chinese people including me are afraid of losing face. People regard losing face as the most shameful and negative thing in one’s life. But losing face can help us recognize our advantages more importantly our disadvantages so as to promote us to improve. Losing face can leads us to success. We have to face it.
As we get older, we’re more afraid of making mistakes because we may be laughed or disrespected by our peers or teachers. However, when learning a new language, it’s difficult to make no mistake. On the contrary, making new mistakes is an effective way to learn the language and enables us to progress. Therefore, we should break through our protective shell and pick up our courage to try, to make mistake, to correct and to progress, as if we were learning Chinese when we were little kids.
I agree that FACE is harmful when we learning new knowledge ,not only Englisg ,but also many other things.I myself is an example.I’m shy and I’m always wondering whether others will look down upon me,so I dare not communicate with the others .I dare not say out my own opinnion even when I don’t agree with others.
I learn from many people around me.I see that face is not good when we are pursuiting our success.It makes us hesitated ,just like a frog in the well.There are many examples around us.We Chinese call that “Qing gao”.It’s not good for success and progress.Yes！I know that.
But just like Nancy said ,FACE is not a simple bad character in China.Every country has its own long-ingrained cultural.Sometimes it represents the traditional civility which our ancestor form in the past 5000 years.We live here .The people around us do like this so we learn and do the samething.Then we are accepted by the whole society.
When we were young children, we had realized how important the “FACE” is. We dared not to answer the teacher’s questions for fear of being derided if the answer was wrong. We dare not to take part in the competition for fear of being despised if we failed. We just feared the possibility of losing face. However, if the people around us could be more friendly and more lenient, are we still so scared to make mistakes? I think the answer is “no”. When people replace the attitude of watching the fun to the attitude of helping others, we will not care about losing face. Then the problems caused by the “FACE” can be solved either.
These days we have noticed the problems with FACE much more than ever.But it is still hard to solve the problems.There are complex factors behind FACE,which are useful to help us to overcome those obstacles on our forward way.One of the factors behind the FACE is an universal psychology of being afraid of bad results.It is a natural feeling and it occurs before we think seriously that “FACE is simply false pride and has no real time value ” .With this recognition,we get one of the methods to solve the problems of FACE,which means we should help each other with encouraging instead of laughing,with correcting what is wrong instead of reprimanding.We could try to turn the bad results into better.
FACE issue is complicated, for it exists for thousands of years and still plays an important role in the real social life; it behaves traditionally, socially and culturally, and it is educated and rooted into the deep national psyche. So that we will surely make mistake when we treat it and make conclusions of it with simple mind and reason. The article above which believes that FACE is a symbol of the collectivism, low standard, predestined failure obviously makes historical misunderstanding, because China traditionally succeeded in the imperial periods when Chinese regarded FACE as an indispensable and essential element of the inter-relationships. The second mistake is that, valuing FACE results more or less unenthusiastic participation, it nevertheless doesn’t bring “apathy, indifference, and incompetence”. On the contrary, FACE is an impetus of the intimacy of the relationship, because FACE is rather than selfish but a stimulation of the reciprocal esteem and expectation. Rather, we can even account it as humanism, which means here merely human relationship. The third question should be posed here is that FACE doesn’t obstacle or inhibit outstanding. As a matter of fact, those people with high achievement, whether commercially or politically, will enjoy more respect, which means more FACE.
“So-So” is NO-NO
In china, we indeed pay more attention to our “face” and we can derive the source from history. As the article says, “face” not only brings many obstacles in our study and daily life but also prevent us achieving success. Now, fortunately our government recognized the problem and made some useful plans to forbid this phenomenon especially in the education. We invite famous scholars come to china to teach in order to indicate our teaching mistakes, change our traditional teaching habits and bring new opinions to our students.
I quite agree with your point in this article. China has so a long time of feudal society，which left so many bad thoughts and habits in Chinese people’s mind ,”so-so” is a special example.
You are right, “SO-SO” is NO-NO. Chinese always think that people should not be too emulative, or trouble will come. Keep mediocrity is an intelligent way to live in the world, which can be found in many Chinese traditional classical works. But in modern society, competition is becoming more and more intense within countries，zones，companies and so forth. So this Chinese traditional thought may be old-fashioned.
We should exchange our thought and the way to consider problems, and face our weak points directly, or we will not improve and stand in front of other countries in the world.
The article pointed out a social phenomenon.In my opinion, there are many reasons behind it.We have a long history,and we respected the Doctrine of the Mean of Confucius Culture.Most of us misunderstood this doctrine,so many people formed a “so-so” attitude.Some people think the “FACE” is very important in there lives. Maybe they lack self-confidence and courage.
We love our our country,we must try our best to develop our country.The “so-so” attitude is harmful.Forget the “FACE”,nobody will care your mistakes.Everyone has his own live.Moreover, learning is not a bad thing.Don’t be shy.We must have DIGNITY rather than FACE, and we also have to say “NO” to “so-so”.
I agree with your point of view very much,for a Chinese people,i know our culture deeply know our character,including merits and disadvantages. Chinina has a long history of two thousands years.which is our cherished spiritual heritage,but also restrict our development.when we were children,we were infused many fixed culture and way to handle affairs,whether right or not.One kind of culture which has so long history is not easy to change,but I can feel our culture is changing,not a good direction,I know changing is complex,maybe need long time to judge.
“China is a developing country and will remain a developing country for a long time.” This is a famous sentence which is on our high school politics textbook. We know the facts clearly, and few sensible people will expect that China will soon become a develop country. The facts are mentioned in the second paragraph are true, I admit all of that. But the reason the article blame for is highly abstractive and simplified, which makes it sounds like if our Chinese people lose the face and everything good will come around. The reasons of these social problems are much more complicated. I think if the government wants to sit down to solve them, the “face” thing must be the last thing which will be considered. Because if we solve these problems like the article suggests, the most probable consequence is that not only the problems are still here but we lose something valued to our culture.
As to the English study, I’d rather to comprehend that “leave your face in your dorm” is another saying instead of “don’t be shy” or “be brave”. Indeed, learning English need to speak out loudly and afraid helps nothing. But put the “face” thing too high is not a good thing. Some one can get success because of the “abandon face” action in English study or in the job area doesn’t means it works for all.
I think “face” is not a bad thing completely, although we know too many examples show that we live tiredly for “face”. In some degree,” face” is relevant to dignity. Isn’t the dignity very, very important for a man in the west? Most of people will feel shamed when he is weaker than others. Some people chose to work hard to make them strong, some people choose to hide in a corner and never show up. I think the brave men always choose the first.
Face is not that important to me. It is OK for me to talk with strangers on a train, or during traveling.However, sometimes I do care about it in English classes. The only answer to this, I think is for the people around me in classes are acquaintances. I know that my English is not good enough to express well in public, and I don’t want to make mistakes in front of my classmates. Because that would let them look me down, and I do will lose my face.
This is the situation, but now I want to change it, for English is so soundful a language and so useful a tool for finding jobs. I ought to and I am willing to forget the FACE thing in my English class. If you are my classmates, please don’t laugh at me when I am making mistakes and I do will not laugh at you. Why not let the English class be a FACE free class, so that everybody has no face, and we needn’t to scare of losing it.
When I started to learn English 10 years ago, I was shy to speak a foreign language out just as shying to sing a song. In the first two days, I did not speak a single word to a real person except reading aloud in crowd or reading in a low voice on my own. But just reading without speaking. For I was too worried about my pronunciation or as the article above said, too worried about my face. I even answered teacher’s question in whispers when I was asked. However, my father who heard this from my teacher awaked me by saying that English is a language instead of some skillful activities like singing which may ask more than giving a sound. But one can not live without language. And if his tongue is healthy, he must talk to people in language. So I realized the success of English is not something else but the success of communication which must fail if I don’t talk. I remembered that once my English teacher invited a foreigner to communicate with us and how encouraged I am when I realized he can hear me however poor my English is. I do miss my teacher in junior middle school. Because when I entered in a high middle school, I found English teachers there didn’t speak English to us but examined us and analysed the exam.
Everybody knows that having face will not buy something in the shop, it worth nothing .however, if you do not have a face, you might something, which may be every important to you, in your life or job .In this circumstance, face means source, which will bring you what you want or accomplish your wish in an effective way in this country. That is why Chinese people do not act differently or personally. Of course, for our English learning, we should not be afraid of losing face, because that means chance, not only studying but also job hunting. As a Chinese, in some part of our daily life, we may take attention to the face, but not all the parts nor all the time.
Chinese is a developing country, it’s the truth. But I think it is also superficial to attribute the reason to “face” problem. Chinese people are concerning about face-saving and the problem always takes a lot of problems, but it is Chinese culture, you can not attribute Chinese lag to culture. In history, Chinese have made a great deal of achievements. So I think there is other factors that due to Chinese lags.
In fact, I don’t like this tradition of “face” and “ass kissing”. It make me do everything over-cautious and be afraid of expressing myself, and I’m trying to make myself not paying too much attention to “face”, but it is difficult, it is even more difficult to change others.
I am happy to see such an interesting article. Obviously, the author have his incisive opinions on this subject and from this article we know he must have a thorough learning about both Chinese and Western culture.
As to the so-call “face” issue, I think different people may have different views. Now I want to talk about my opinion about “face”. To a certain degree, “face” is something like “dignity” in English. The difference between Chinese “face” and Western “dignity” is that problems related to dignity are crucial ones but related to “face” are trifles from the perspective of others. However, the principles of life vary from person to person. So it is very possible that a same argument can be seen as different importance by different people. Maybe one thing it is about dignity, but another one just views it merely as a problem about “face”.
After reading this article, I remembered one instance. Before Asian Games in Guangzhou, the government of Guangzhou has done a mountain of work, including “dressing the house” which makes the old houses look beautiful by refacing the outer walls of them. This decision is about face. In China, face means reputation. But from this instance, I think, face means vanity and it’s not a good phenomenon. Because although the old houses were crude, it was what it actually was and it was the true Guangzhou. There is no need to shy for it. What’s more, refacing the outer walls spent a lot of money but obtained little effect. So we need to think about “face” seriously.
Almost everyone in China regard “face” as very important, if one loses face, they may think it terrible. Especially in front of public, people pretend to be someone that can get respect and recognition from other person. People in China like gossiping in their spare time, that may why people are afraid to lose face and being talked by other person. If I want to make progress in English, I’d better make mistakes as many as possible in front of public and not afraid to lose face.