THE CHINESE CONCEPTS OF “FACE” BY HSIEN CHIN HU: A CRITIQUE

 It might, at first glance, appear odd that this critique of Ms Hsien Chin Hu’s article, The Chinese Concepts of “Face”[1] is being written at all.  After all, the article was published in the journal, “American Anthropologist” in 1944 — almost eighty years ago!  However, the past often holds keys to the future.  Indeed, as India and China stare balefully at each other today across a rapidly widening geopolitical chasm, it is becoming increasingly important for India, her higher defence establishment, and her defence forces in general, to understand what makes China ‘act’ in a given manner and, even more importantly, to identify specific stimuli that would make China ‘react’ in a given manner.

The importance of knowing one’s enemy is one of the many precepts of Sun Tzu, who is translated as having said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”[2]  Readers of this critique would find it instructive to recall that well before the outbreak of the US-Japanese armed conflict in the Pacific as part of the Second World War, the US military establishment had run repeated wargames by way of a series of contingency plans — known as “War Plan Orange”[3] — for singlehandedly fighting a war with Japan (that is, without support from the USA’s allies).  Thus, contrary to the notion popularised by Hollywood films, the USA was, in fact, quite aware that Japan would be its greatest threat in the Pacific theatre — the ‘surprise’ attack on Pearl Harbour notwithstanding.  Of greater relevance to the rationale underpinning this critique, was the recognition in the US military as well as civilian establishments that there were fundamental cultural differences between the Japanese and the American peoples.  Consequently, a selected small number of American anthropologists/ behavioural scientists were tasked by the United States Office of War Information (OWI) with studying Japanese behaviour in order to understand the Japanese psyche — what made the Japanese act in a certain fashion?  What American stimulus could be applied that would make the Japanese react in a fashion that could be anticipated by the US?  These studies are acknowledged to have been crucial to the American war effort.  One of the most famous and “influential” of these studies was Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,[4] which brilliantly brought out the distinction between ‘shame’ cultures and ‘guilt’ cultures.[5]

The question for contemporary India, in dealing with the contemporary aggressive rise of the People’s Republic of China, is whether Indian scholarship can build upon the conceptual foundation that Benedict had put in place.  It is the belief that it not only can — but must — that drives this attempt to lay the first bricks of an Indian intellectual edifice that might well prove decisive to the higher defence organisation of our country.  Hence the relevance of this critique.

The fact that prestige finds value and appeal cross-culturally is so evident as to bear little elaboration. As Professor Robert Gilpin of Princeton University has succinctly put it, “Prestige, rather than power, is the everyday currency of international relations, much as authority is the central ordering feature of domestic society…  Whereas power refers to the economic, military, and related capacities and capabilities of a state, prestige refers primarily to the perceptions of other states with respect to a state’s capacities and its ability and willingness to exercise its power … Prestige involves the credibility of a state’s power to achieve its objectives… Prestige is enormously important because if your strength (power) is recognised, you can generally achieve your aims without having to use your power.” [6]   Perhaps what matters equally is the degree to which prestige is valued across different cultures and societies.  On the one hand, individualistic cultures (guilt-based cultures) — spanning most of the Western world — do not lay any particular emphasis on the group’s perception of the individual, or, for that matter, the individual’s acknowledgement of the approval or disapproval of a societal group, choosing instead to focus on the individual’s uniqueness, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency.  On the other hand, collectivistic cultures (shame-based cultures) — spread over much of the non-Western world — place significant, if not inordinate, priority of the group’s needs above those of the individual and lay especial emphasis upon respectfulness, social harmony, and the perception of others.[7]  The geographical distribution of these two cultural variants is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Source: Geert Hofstede

When the term “face” is brought to the fore, prestige, honour, respect, and renown are some of the key words evoked in the Western reader’s mind.  However, these words do not quite capture the true essence of what “face” actually refers to, which is where Hsien Chin Hu’s article (The Chinese Concepts of “Face”) becomes quite so important, despite the passage of almost eight decades.  As per Hu, “face” is not a singular entity in Chinese culture.  Instead, what the rest of the world attributes as “face”, can, in fact, be divided into “two sets of criteria by which prestige is gained and status secured or improved”,[8]  namely, lien and mien-tzŭ.  At the surface level, both the words lien and mien-tzŭ mean “face”.  However, Hu expounds upon the significant differences that exist between them.  Understanding these differences will, therefore, aid readers unfamiliar with Chinese culture and society in better perceiving the people.  The schematic for lien has been depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Source: Produced by the author’s derivation of Hsien Chin Hu’s text

Lien

Delving into the concept of lien, Hsien Chin Hu describes it as “a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction”,[9] and uses several situational examples to establish its social application.  Hu explains that the term lien can be used in several ways, with different sets of meanings (as well as degrees of severity), which is why the context and examples that the author has provided are so crucial to absorb.  For instance, one may lose lien (tiu-lien); one may lose lien for so-and-so (kei mou-mou-jên tiu-lien); one may just not want lien in the first place (pu-yao lien)*; one may have no lien (mei-yu lien)**; and one may have thick or thin skin on the lien (lien-p’i hou or po).

Within much of China, the loss of lien is akin to social suicide, especially since public memory is as good as set in stone.  It is unsurprising, therefore, to find that people have actually committed suicide due to a (perceived) loss of their lien.  Besides, taking into consideration that people of higher social standing have more dignity to maintain — meaning that should they experience the loss of their lien — the consequences are likely to be far more intense and drastic than they would be for people of lower social standing.  It would be prudent to understand how exactly this loss of lien, or degradation of character, could occur.  People from collectivist (shame-based) cultures are known to downplay their achievements and abilities where domestic society is concerned.  Thus, Hu describes the Chinese as often being “excessively modest about their attainments and status”[10] in order to minimise adverse societal judgement should their performance fall short of their public projection of their abilities.  For instance, if a boastful person fails, he will not have much sympathy from his group, as they consider him to have poor judgement of his own capabilities and character, and the person will thus be considered as ““light and floating” (ch’ing-fou) in character”.[11]  On the other hand, a person earnest in his work and careful in the judgement of his abilities will be considered “sinking and steady” (ch’ên-chuo) or “reliably heavy” (wên-chung)”.[12]  In other words, Chinese society privileges people who consciously choose to project low expectations but achieve them successfully, over those who project overly ambitious plans and then fail at actualising them.  By corollary, once an expectation is made public (the ‘China Dream’ for instance) the need to avoid lien-related societal opprobrium resulting from a failure to deliver would be a factor likely to exert an inordinate influence on those responsible to deliver the projected result.  In fact, Hu argues that given the fervent commitment towards maintaining lien, people “in subordinate positions can use the fact that their superiors must maintain lien at a high level”,[13] to their advantage.  Hu goes on to state that losing lien ‘for so-and-so’ refers to one losing lien not only for oneself, but also for his ‘inner circle’ consisting of his family and his close friends, since “[p]ublic disgrace or ridicule of a serious nature is bound to have an effect on the reputation of the family”.[14]  Considering the function that lien plays in maintaining “the consciousness of moral boundaries, […] moral values”[15] and exerting the “force of social sanctions”,[16] it could be a powerful weapon for the commoners in Chinese society to wield if the upper echelons of society are perceived to be going back on their word.  Consequently, the elites within the autocracy are deeply conscious of the need to deliver on their promises.  This need is far more intensively felt in China than it might be in, say, India or the ‘west’, because of the overarching pressure that lien exerts in China.  Could this, then, be a tool to predict the degree of freneticism that might govern Chinese behaviour as the promulgated China Dream deadline of 2049 draws nigh?

On the other hand, some scholars feel that this concept of ‘face’ as typified by lien is hardly unique to China.  They point out that this dimension of lien is quite similar to the concept of honour (“izzat”) in some parts of India, wherein individuals are considered to be representatives of their ancestral family clans and since one’s ancestors are greatly revered, the thought that one’s actions might honour one’s ancestors — or bring disgrace upon them — is a powerful force that significantly shapes or modifies societal behaviour.  Indeed, this notion of izzat is frequently encountered in the Indian defence forces, especially in some units of the Indian Army.  For instance, the Indian Army’s Regiment of Artillery’s motto, Sarvatra Izzat-o-Iqbal (omnipresence with honour and glory) serves to instil that peculiar “consciousness of collective responsibility”[17] that is so deeply ingrained in collectivist societies, wherein anything that threatens the honour and reputation of the in-group will have to be dealt with, whatever be the consequences.  In different sections of Indian society, honour killings, punishments handed down by a court martial, ostracization of an individual and his kin by others belonging to the dominant social group, or even by the members of one’s own family or close circle, provide examples of behaviour that is extremely similar to that driven by lien.  And yet, for all this similarity, lien as a national trait in China is, nevertheless, different.  This is because while such notions do apply in India, they are limited to relatively restricted subsets of Indian society and certainly do not apply to India as a whole or to its several peoples (elites or otherwise) as they do in respect of China.

As an example of the societal ramifications of individual behaviour — where the individual concerned is from a shame-based society such as China — Hu states that “[m]any Chinese feel particularly embarrassed when meeting Americans in this country: they fear that by unwittingly breaking conventions they may “lose the face of their country”.”[18]  Thus, individual Chinese behaviour is strongly shaped by the anticipation of shaming the larger society — in this case, that of China as a whole.

Hu thereafter offers some perspectives of the two remaining — and far more damning variants — of lien, namely, that of ‘not wanting lien’, and that of ‘having no lien’.[19]  Both these are strong aberrations and refer to an individual who has no concern about what the rest of his societal group thinks of his own lien or character, and does not care about the collective lien of the society itself.  It seems at least theoretically possible that people in the highest social strata could be or could become indifferent to lien, leading a reader to conclude that Chinese leaders might then be immune from the societal pressure that might otherwise have held them accountable and responsible for any shortfalls in behaviour or conduct.  It seems at least theoretically possible that people in the higher social strata could be or become indifferent to lien, leading a reader to conclude that such leaders could then be immune from societal pressure that might otherwise have held them accountable and responsible for any misdeeds and/or malpractices.  However, in contemporary Chinese society, the leadership has almost invariably emerged from the peasantry, either by way of birth or by way of punishment (as witnessed in the Cultural Revolution where many of China’s current leaders, including Xi Jinping, were forced to undergo re-education by living and working with the masses).  As a result, even while the degree of lien might well be eroded by personal ambition and greed for power (causing the individual to develop ‘thick skin’ on his or her lien), these elites are, nevertheless, already deeply imbued with the concept of lien and are unable (and mostly unwilling) to overcome their societal conditioning.

As is obvious from the choice of the adjective itself, a person with ‘thin’ skin on his lien would be highly sensitive to the perceptions of others, while a person with ‘thick’ skin on his lien might be less so.  As per Hu, an individual seeking a career in politics ought, in fact, to have a thick skin on his lien “in order to carry out many acts against his conscience”,[20] implying that people successfully carrying out their duties in positions of power (for instance, members of the Communist Party of China [CPC]) might be less affected by lien.  However, it is difficult to conclude from this that lien can be abandoned altogether.  It is also possible for a given individual to simultaneously have ‘thick’ skin on his or her lien when interacting with one segment of society and ‘thin’ skin when interacting with another.  For instance, the military might well demonstrate thicker skin on its lien when interacting with society at large, but far thinner skin on its lien when interacting with other segments of the military, especially when this interaction involves a foreign military.  Importantly, Hu is quite unequivocal in asserting that society favours “the person with a thin skin, for he conforms more readily to social standards”.[21]  In short, ‘face’ counts for much.

Mien-Tzŭ

Hsien Chin Hu then focusses on the numerous ‘concrete/literal’ and ‘figurative/psychological’ meanings of mien-tzŭ.  The literal meanings include the “surface of an object”,[22] its direction and aspect, as also “face in the physiological sense”.[23]  However, taken figuratively (in the psychological sense), mien-tzŭ has multiple connotations.  For instance, one connotation is “to consider mien-tzŭ” or ku mien-tzŭ, wherein one ought to actively take one’s mien-tzŭ into account in order to further one’s prestige.  Hu offers the example where “the head of a family will give a big feast for his birthday, arranging theatricals to last for several days for all the members of the community”,[24] in order to increase his affability within his group and society.  Another connotation is “to add to one’s mien-tzŭ”, or tsêng-chia mien-tzŭ, which refers to one patronising an institution of public welfare, attaching one’s name to important documents, associating with noble endeavours — all of which bring one “into the public limelight”[25] and ensure “favorable comment”.[26]  In this case too, the overt engagement in philanthropic activities serve to boost one’s mien-tzŭ.  The risk, of course, is that these methods prescribing a pompous display of extravaganza, as well as public endorsements of noble causes could earn the ire of other members of society.  This leads to another connotation — “to want mien-tzŭ” or yao mien-tzŭ, which refers to the attempt made at acquiring mien-tzŭ “by ostentation or subterfuge”.[27]  Hsien Chin Hu offers an example by way of a tale highlighting the Manchus’ “exaggerated desire”[28] for mien-tzŭ, wherein the people in question are thereafter mocked for this by the very society that they wished to impress.  Hu also suggests that it can, at times, be disadvantageous for an individual or for society to give undue consideration to mien-tzŭ, explaining that “[t]his is why throughout Chinese literature we find many an individual extolled for not considering anyone’s mien-tzŭ when it interfered with the carrying out of a duty”.[29]

Further, the expression “to leave mien-tzŭ”, or liu mien-tzŭ, refers to allowing one some grace when one has committed a mistake by not being exposed or reprimanded in public.  According to Hu, this was especially evident in the cases of powerful people being subject to trial and examination in secret when they had committed some crimes, instead of the “conventional” recourse of ‘naming and shaming’ them.  This is probably what is meant by “preventing the loss of face”.  As such, this could be, in and of itself, a powerful tool by which an external group could shape collective Chinese behaviour.  Here, liu mien-tzŭ offers more nuanced exploitation than does lien, as “lien is conceived of as being maintained or lost as a whole”,[30] with no provision of redressal or reform whatsoever.

Conclusion

Hsien Chin Hu presents an elaborate and detailed article on the Chinese conceptions of ‘face’, arguing that both lien and mien-tzŭ have their own meanings and ought not, therefore, to be used interchangeably.  In interpreting Hu, much weight needs to be assigned to the socio-cultural backdrop against which the text was penned.  1944 was a year prior to the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War and predates the advent of the Communist Party of China.  Chinese society has been through several major upheavals through the tumultuous years following China’s emergence as a republic, including Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, as also as the more recent Tiananmen Square protests.  All these have undoubtedly impacted if not actively shaped the Chinese psyche, and the behaviour of its elites under different stimuli.  Hence, while the commentary of Hu is, for the most part, convincing, there are several statements that have demanded greater scrutiny.  As per Hu, lien is of greater importance and value than mien-tzŭ, and so, the maintenance of the former is to be prioritised over the latter.  Consequently, according to the author’s perspective of Chinese society, the latter seems to promote risk-aversion, favouring safety and the maintenance of a comfort zone.  Perhaps in an effort to garner greater relevance for her own work, Hu attempts to link examples from international politics (specifically Western politics) to several facets of lien and mien-tzŭ.  However, it is far from clear whether Western leaders have paid as much heed to ‘face’ as a tool to shape behaviour, especially the behaviour of military elites.  Additional aspects that need further analysis include the role of age and gender in determining the manner in which lien or mien-tzŭ is observed in society.  Hu suggests that young children are treated as adults in order to develop their self-esteem, and by extension, their sense of responsibility — else, in the absence of responsibility for their actions, the lien of children and adolescents would not be given much importance.  Moreover, Hu briefly hints that older people tend to have “greater freedom from conventions”[31] as society has great confidence in their integrity, which prompts the question of whether an individual can, over time, accumulate lien, as seems to be the case with mien-tzŭ.  Additional questions are the extent to which gender affects lien and/or mien-tzŭ, given that another expression for ‘losing lien’ is tiu-jên, or ‘to lose [one’s] man’.  Do women have a greater responsibility or stake in preserving ‘face’, or should the expression be construed to imply that men are scrutinised by society to a far greater extent than are women?  Questions such as these demand further investigation and will be taken up as this study into ‘face’ as a means to shape Chinese behaviour is progressed.

*****

About the Author

 An aspiring social anthropologist, Ms Krithi Ganesh is currently a Junior Research Associate at the National Maritime Foundation, engaged in research on ‘face’ as a means to determine or shape behavioural pattern of Chinese elites in general and military elites in particular.  She may be contacted at pcrt3.nmf@gmail.com.

[1] Hsien Chin Hu, “The Chinese Concepts of “Face”.” American Anthropologist 46, No 1 (1944), 45-64 http://www.jstor.org/stable/662926.

[2] Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, translated by Lionel Giles, Project Gutenberg eBook, 1994, https://www.utoledo.edu/rotc/pdfs/the_art_of_war.pdf

[3] Edward S Miller, “War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945”, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, United States, 2007 ISBN 0-87021-759-3

[4] Richard H Minear, “Cross-Cultural Perception and World War II: American Japanists of the 1940s and Their Images of Japan.” International Studies Quarterly 24, no. 4 (1980): 555–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/2600292

[5] Ruth Benedict, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture”, Mariner Books, 2008 (now HarperCollins)

[6] Robert Gilpin, “War and Change in World Politics”, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1981, 31

See also: Yuen Foong Khong, “Power as Prestige in World Politics”, in International Affairs, University of Chicago, 23 May 2020, https://www.coursehero.com/file/62426586/International-Affairs-Power-as-Prestigepdf/

[7] Geert Hofstede, “The 6 Dimensions Model of National Culture by Geert Hofstede,” Geert Hofstede, n.d., https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/

[8] Hsien Chin Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” American anthropologist 46, No. 1 (1944): 45-64. Pg 45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/662926.

[9] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 45.

* Or bu-yao lien, according to conventional Mandarin

** Or mei-yao lien, according to conventional Mandarin

[10] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 48.

[11] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 49.

[12] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 49.

[13] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 48.

[14] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 50.

[15] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 50.

[16] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 50.

[17] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 50.

[18] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 50.

[19] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 52.

[20] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 54.

[21] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 54.

[22] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 55.

[23] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 55.

[24] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 55.

[25] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 56.

[26] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 56.

[27] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 58.

[28] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 58.

[29] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 56.

[30] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 61.

[31] Hu, “The Chinese concepts of “face”.” 52.