YY, a friend of mine, always keep a sleek look in front of us. But in fact, it is difficult for her to make ends meet every month with a regular salary, not to speak of clothes of famous brand. In order to save face, she would rather choose high consumption that is not consistent with her true state.
In a meeting or a conversation, most Chinese people are often too shy to tell what they really think. As for them, face-saving means not making others embarrassed. Some even tell a lie.
How do you think of this ? Is face-saving a common phenomenon in western countries? Are you a person who is worrying about losing face? And if you are in a dilemma, what will you do to deal with?
haha, some even tell a lie. i never noticed that.
In the UK we can save face without telling a big lie.
The difficulty with the face save lies is that problems don't get dealt with. For most non-Asians this type of lying makes us angry, and actually causes more problems. If the lie also means that someone will not take responsibility for thier actions, we get very angry.
The outcomes of lying in my culture (British). In simple terms you no longer trust that person.
If friends lie, I no longer want them as friends.
If people in business lie to me, I no longer want to work with them. This is why many of us dislike working with a Chinese boss.
If a shopkeeper lies to me. I walk out the door and tell others the guy cannot be trusted. If a shop keeper lies to me and I find out after I have bought something, I tell everyone.
In the end many of us have learned to trust no one. Except those closest to us. And we don't let many Chinese people get close to us.
So Ritta, from Dazzer's post we can see for Westerners that saving face by telling a lie can lead to the relationship being damaged or totally broken off.
How do Chinese respond when someone tells them a lie? Is their personal pride (showing off something that is false) more important than the guanxi with the other person?
@Quester
Isn't face-saving/giving the main part of how guanxi develops in China?
Acctually, I am keen on give other people face, but I do not care whether the others give me face. I prefer winning it to being given
I think there is also a bit of culture clash here. What people do to save some face in one culture, can cause a total loss of culture in the other. The problem is when the two cultures meet.
But for many western cultures lying can cause a loss of face that can never be recovered. And the damage can be total.
@yankee00, "guanxi" is a difficult puzzle for me. I don't know, either.
@tigertiger, I know that. telling a lie may be just one of the parts. there still exist many other problems. my friend YY is another example, i guess she make all that remarks to save her face. may be for her, it is a shame to wear some ordinary dresses. in.kunming.cn/[...]
