Loss of Face

Ruth Chao & Heather Knox & Francis L. Stevens & Rebecca Wagner

Loss of face expresses loss of social status, a matter of social ostracism, in Asian collective cultures that esteem fulfilling social obligations. One's face shows to others one's identity and integrity. Thus face is personal and interpersonal, individual and social, both at once. Face represents social confidence and communal esteem in a person's integrity, social respectability a person deserves, and one's self-respect in meeting obligations, communal, and unwritten. Loss of face is serious, for fulfilling the social requirements is essential to one's status and prestige in a society, and to lose face amounts to being branded “immoral” in public. Asian individuals develop subtle and intricate communications to maintain face against its “loss,” which damages one's social standing. To lose face is to lose social status ...

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