Face saving culture is basically like a culture of yes men. Its the kow-tow reflex of a culture that reads too many romance novels and fantasy books all idolizing a ‘wise’ king/emperor/queen/special group of ‘wizards’ with abilities beyond the norm/ figures.
People who tell you what you want to hear to avoid having to do any extra effort.. or the possibility of offending or upsetting a ‘superior.’ Then behind the back they will say and do the complete opposite so ‘things can get done’.
This is why you see the traffic situation. People do not respect the police as they, themselves do not respect their own laws. Thus creating the lawless situation on the road. this is an intractable problem until constitutional change and rewritten laws can be applied to the mess that is law in Taiwan. The best you can do for now is drive at the same rate as those around you and be like flowing water while in traffic. Flow towards the edges if you are uncomfortable with the rate, and get away from the larger packs.
The face saving culture also creates a vacuum effect in traditional style managed businesses. A small problem is ignored until it is bigger and bigger because the underlings do not feel it is their place to alert so called ‘superiors’ to any problem detected. Thus many problems go unsolved, seemingly un-noticed.
The best way to avoid this problem is simple, private, face to face encounters with people. If you want to get anything done. Never point out a problem in public. It is seen as insinuating that the problem is the ‘superior’s’ fault and causes face loss and prestige loss. Always deal one on one for problems. Always smile and nod in public and be seen as agreeable. Use vaugue ‘possibility’ style placebos, much as diplomats use. Save directness for private time. Generally then things get done with minimal shouting and face loss.
Open meetings in public are not suitable for discussion of real issues in Chinese culture, and increasingly so in Western culture.When face saving is taken too far, problems get bigger and bigger. When no private guidance is done, or everyone who SHOULD be doing their job is lazy and not pointing out problems/ taking money TO not point out the problems, then you have constant societal breakdown. Then you have the thing we call modern government and big (unsuccessful) business.
Of course a no-face saving, no safe outlet for anger culture also creates a constant ill-informed shouting match that leads to nothing getting done, due to interminable debates about remote possibilities. Hmm… it sounds like modern America’s upper echelon! On its way down unless people wake up and stop bitching and start working around the lawyers without permission. (and when shit gets done, the lawyers will be shut up.)
March 1st, 2010 at 1:46 am
I don’t think it’s unique to Taiwan, but rather, something known to most Chinese (living in Southeast Asia).
Face-saving can be defined as "protecting the positive social image of others" or "not being disrespectful to others in public, or taking preventive actions so that we will not appear to lose face in the eyes of others".
For example, doing something thought to be shameful or embarrassing and having people see it or know about it would mean a loss of face (losing face). Pointing out someone’s faux pas in public, and drawing attention to it would be failing to save face for that person and instead causing him/her to lose face.
If you’d like to know more, check out this extensive article: http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/face/
References :
http://www.bsu.edu/web/00jjzhao/abc-intl/jimscott3.htm
March 1st, 2010 at 2:30 am
Not all Taiwanese like to save faces, take the joker Chen Shuibian as an example.
References :
March 1st, 2010 at 2:40 am
What is wrong with CSB??
He and the DPP got the Unemloyment situation figures down to 3.82 %(Best in decades) and The Foreign Exchange Reserves is now at USD266+ Bil up from USD106Bil in 2000.
All of this without any input from the KMT who has been bitching for 7 years even though could have made great improvements for the Taiwanese with their vote advantage in the Legislative Yuan. All they did was object to any proposal from the DPP (their right as Opp) but they did not come up with any constructive proposals at all.
References :
March 1st, 2010 at 3:16 am
Face saving culture is basically like a culture of yes men. Its the kow-tow reflex of a culture that reads too many romance novels and fantasy books all idolizing a ‘wise’ king/emperor/queen/special group of ‘wizards’ with abilities beyond the norm/ figures.
People who tell you what you want to hear to avoid having to do any extra effort.. or the possibility of offending or upsetting a ‘superior.’ Then behind the back they will say and do the complete opposite so ‘things can get done’.
This is why you see the traffic situation. People do not respect the police as they, themselves do not respect their own laws. Thus creating the lawless situation on the road. this is an intractable problem until constitutional change and rewritten laws can be applied to the mess that is law in Taiwan. The best you can do for now is drive at the same rate as those around you and be like flowing water while in traffic. Flow towards the edges if you are uncomfortable with the rate, and get away from the larger packs.
The face saving culture also creates a vacuum effect in traditional style managed businesses. A small problem is ignored until it is bigger and bigger because the underlings do not feel it is their place to alert so called ‘superiors’ to any problem detected. Thus many problems go unsolved, seemingly un-noticed.
The best way to avoid this problem is simple, private, face to face encounters with people. If you want to get anything done. Never point out a problem in public. It is seen as insinuating that the problem is the ‘superior’s’ fault and causes face loss and prestige loss. Always deal one on one for problems. Always smile and nod in public and be seen as agreeable. Use vaugue ‘possibility’ style placebos, much as diplomats use. Save directness for private time. Generally then things get done with minimal shouting and face loss.
Open meetings in public are not suitable for discussion of real issues in Chinese culture, and increasingly so in Western culture.When face saving is taken too far, problems get bigger and bigger. When no private guidance is done, or everyone who SHOULD be doing their job is lazy and not pointing out problems/ taking money TO not point out the problems, then you have constant societal breakdown. Then you have the thing we call modern government and big (unsuccessful) business.
Of course a no-face saving, no safe outlet for anger culture also creates a constant ill-informed shouting match that leads to nothing getting done, due to interminable debates about remote possibilities. Hmm… it sounds like modern America’s upper echelon! On its way down unless people wake up and stop bitching and start working around the lawyers without permission. (and when shit gets done, the lawyers will be shut up.)
References :