Face Archives - understand-culture

A Rolls-Royce for New Year

In February 2024, The Paper reported on luxury car rentals before the Spring Festival. A Rolls-Royce Phantom rented for 8,000 yuan a day, with a minimum of seven days. On Ctrip, the Beijing holiday rate for the same model was 9,600 yuan a day. Ctrip reported that its Spring Festival car rental bookings had grown more than threefold over the year before.

A partner in a Beijing rental firm said that the early renters did it “only to prop up the front of the house” (撑门面). Now their reasons vary. Some rent sports cars to drive home for matchmaking dates.

Ordering for Face

“We used to think that ordering more dishes when treating guests gave us face. Now the waiters remind us to order moderately, and that is good. Now we take pride in a clean plate.” A diner named Yan said this in a Beijing restaurant in August 2020, during the Clean Plate campaign against food waste.

A People’s Daily commentary that September described the habit. Some people are frugal at other times, it said, but when they host, “even three or five people order a whole big table.” In some places, if the guests eat every dish, “the host feels he has no face.” Its headline gave the answer. Wasting food “is not having face, but losing face.”

No Face to See Them

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)

Pick Up the Chopsticks

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.”

The Broken Tassels

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).

Burning the Letters

After Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao at Guandu, he took Yuan Shao’s papers. Among them he found letters that men in the capital and in his own army had written to Yuan Shao. He burned them all.

The Records of the Three Kingdoms records this. A commentary quotes Cao Cao’s reason: “When Yuan Shao was strong, even I could not be sure of keeping myself safe. How much less could the others?”

Sayings on Face

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.

Lian and Mianzi

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.”

Granting Face

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.

Lu Xun on Face

In October 1934, Lu Xun published a short essay called On “Face” (说”面子”). It begins: “‘Face’ is something we often hear about in conversation.”

Lu Xun writes that it is good that Chinese people want face. The pity is that this face is “round and flexible” (圆机活法) and good at changing.