In 202 BC, defeated by Liu Bang, Xiang Yu reached the Wu River. On the other side lay Jiangdong, where he had raised his army. He refused to cross.
“I crossed the river and went west with eight thousand young men of Jiangdong. Today not one of them returns. Even if the fathers and elder brothers of Jiangdong pitied me and made me king, with what face could I see them? Even if they said nothing, would I not be ashamed in my heart?”
He died there by his own hand. (Records of the Grand Historian)
In 2006, sex workers and their clients were paraded through the streets in Shenzhen, and the clients’ heads were shaved. In July 2010, police in Dongguan led sex workers on a rope while local television filmed them. In Wuhan, the names of suspects were posted in the street, and the police later admitted that this was “indeed improper.”
Later that month, the Ministry of Public Security ordered the police to stop parading suspects in public. A ban on such parades had already been issued in 1988.
In November 2018, Dolce & Gabbana promoted a large show in Shanghai with videos titled Qi kuai chi fan, Pick Up the Chopsticks and Eat. The brand deleted them from Weibo. On November 21, a screenshot of a private chat with the designer Stefano Gabbana spread on Weibo. That evening the show was cancelled. Its stage, which had cost eight million yuan, was already built.
In a later apology video, the two founders said duibuqi, sorry, in Chinese. Chinese Wikipedia files the episode under the heading “the controversy over insulting China.”
King Zhuang of Chu gave his ministers a feast. Late in the evening, when all were drunk, the candles went out. In the dark a man pulled at the dress of one of the king’s women. She tore the tassel off his hat and told the king: “Bring the light and look for the man without a tassel.”
The king said: “I gave them wine and made them drunk. Why should I display a woman’s virtue and shame an officer?” He ordered: “Whoever drinks with me tonight and does not tear off his tassel has not enjoyed himself.” More than a hundred men tore off their tassels before the lights came back.
Three years later, in a battle against Jin, one officer always fought in front. He told the king that he was the man whose tassel had been torn off. The story is in Liu Xiang’s Garden of Stories (说苑).
人活脸，树活皮 A person lives by face, a tree lives by its bark. A person must guard his good name. Also 人要脸，树要皮.
打人休打脸，骂人休揭短 When hitting someone, do not hit the face. When scolding someone, do not expose his faults.
揭短 To expose a person’s shortcomings and make them public.
得饶人处且饶人 Where one can spare a person, spare him. To be tolerant and leave room. The line is from the Song writer Yao Kuan.
留余地 To leave room. Not to go to extremes in speech or action, so that there is space to turn back.
When Yanzi of Qi went as an envoy to Chu, the people of Chu made a small door for him beside the great gate, because he was short. Yanzi would not enter. “Those sent to a country of dogs go in by the dogs’ gate. I have been sent to Chu, so I should not go in by this gate.” He was led in through the main gate.
On another visit, the King of Chu planned to humiliate him. During a banquet, officers brought in a bound man and said he was from Qi and had stolen. The king asked Yanzi: “Do the people of Qi steal by nature?”
Yanzi answered that an orange grown south of the Huai River is an orange, but grown north of it becomes a bitter orange. People of Qi do not steal at home. “Could it be that the soil and water of Chu make people good at stealing?” The king laughed: “A sage is not a man to joke with. I have brought the shame on myself.”
According to the Book of the Later Han, Mi Heng “had talent and eloquence from his youth, but he was proud and harsh and liked to defy his times and slight others.” Cao Cao wanted to humiliate him and made him a drummer at a banquet. Mi Heng stripped naked before Cao Cao, put on the drummer’s clothes and played on. Cao Cao laughed: “I meant to shame him, and he shamed me.”
Cao Cao did not want to be seen as unable to tolerate a famous man, so he sent Mi Heng to Liu Biao. Mi Heng insulted Liu Biao too and was sent on to Huang Zu. At a banquet, he insulted Huang Zu, who had him killed. Mi Heng was 26.
In 1944, the Chinese anthropologist Hu Hsien Chin published “The Chinese Concepts of ‘Face'” in the journal American Anthropologist. Hu described two Chinese words for face, lian (脸) and mianzi (面子), as “two sets of criteria by which prestige is gained and status secured or improved.”
Lian, Hu wrote, is “a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction.” It “is conceived of as being maintained or lost as a whole.”
赏脸 To grant face. A polite formula used when asking someone to accept a request or a gift. It appears in Dream of the Red Chamber.
撕破脸 To tear the face. To break with someone openly, with no regard for feelings.
死要面子活受罪 To insist on face to the death and suffer while alive. To go through great hardship for the sake of appearances.
丢面子 or 丢脸 To lose face, to be disgraced in front of others.
给面子 To give face, to show someone respect in public.
情面 Affection and face.
家丑不可外扬 Family shame must not be spread outside.