Mianzi
... These facts surely influenced peoplefs psychology, even people of today. When Chinese mention Mianzi, it involves not only self-esteem but also collective pride, which means that people unconsciously consider themselves as a representative of certain groups, such as their families, villages, etc. If they fail to do something in public or hear others abusing their collectives, it is losing Mianzi or face, both for themselves and their collectivities. We have to admit that such consciousness to some extent does exist universally. For example, every athlete from different countries would like to win honor for his homeland, in Olympic Games. They would feel sad and loss of dignity for their countries, if they can not achieve their goals. We may call the feeling losing Mianzi (or losing face). It should also be noticed that the influence of losing Mianzi, which is related to collective pride, is not the same for Chinese and occidentals. Western countries like to regard ancient Greek and Roman cultures as the origin of their cultures3. The ideas of democracy and freedom in ancient Greek and Roman cultures have also been valued a lot and praised highly since Renaissance. Occidentals are not only pleased with these ideas but also trying to pursue and practice them. In the history, they used to use these ideas fighting with feudalism. Nowadays, they take pride in these ideas. They consider democracy and freedom as the core of their cultures and the basic rule of their primary value. With these ideas, individualism is put forward and emphasized. Individualism also exists in economic philosophy, such as free market, one of the characteristics of capitalism. The modulation of the market is free; the workers are free. If we look into their histories, we may find that people with skills could live a gmobileh LifeBThey could use what they produced to exchange for living necessities. If working hard, they might earn lots of money by selling their goods. People, therefore, were encouraged to pursue what they wanted to do. As a result the achievement of self-worth was emphasized. With the influence of individualism, Mianzi which is connected with collective pride is weakened. Most of the occidentals do not treat losing Mianzi, which is related with collective pride, as serious as we Chinese do. For these occidentals, so far if they have tried their best, a bad result is not worth too much regret. On the contrary, for Chinese, they would make great efforts to vindicate the collectivityfs honor. Therefore, Mianzi in China is endowed its first extensive meaning related to collective pride. In China, another extensive meaning is in regard to authority, for the infection of ancient politics. The subordinates should respect their leaders (meeting the leadersf Mianzi) by obeying orders and showing no divergence to the higher-ups. In the feudal age, governors were designed to control civilians. People who wanted to be governors were only concerned with the benefits their positions would bring to them. Though the feudalism has disappeared, it still affects peoplefs minds. A higher authority has higher reputation than the subordinate. It is considered offending the Mianzi of the higher-ups that the subordinates interfere in the business of the higher-ups. We should admit that maintaining Mianzi which relate to authority often brings undemocratic actions. Without the majorityfs surveillanceCcorruptions would easily be aroused among officials. By reading news about the corrupted officials in China, we can understand it. Compared with China, western countries seem to have a long tradition of democracy. Jury system, parliament and council were designed to make sure of the rights of civilians. gA government of the people, by the people, for the peopleh4--- from a famous speech of Abrahams Lincoln, was regarded as a declaration of democracy. The governors are considered as servants of the civilians in those western countries. Civilians could not only show their attitude towards the government through various ways, but also supervise the governors. Under certain circumstances, they could impeach a public official. In July 1974, following revelations of President Richard Nixonfs involvement in the Watergate scandal, congress prepared three articles of impeachment against him that cited obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and defiance of congressional subpoenas.5 The House Judiciary Committee approved the articles of impeachment. Although, Nixon resigned the presidency the following month, avoiding impeachment proceedings and the possibility of further criminal prosecution, it is still a proper event to illustrate the power of impeachment. There is another example. In the year 2001, there was a large area of service interruption in California. The former governor of California, named Davis condemned the Bush administration. He argued that the direct cause of the power cut is the lack of investment from the central government in California on electric power. Letfs put the result of the event aside. The incident itself may greatly shock every Chinese. In China, there are only chances for each province to say yes to the central government in public, rather than say no. Besides different political system, Mianzi also plays an important role. This might be the reason why occidentals can not easily understand this meaning of Mianzi. Besides the meaning mentioned above, another meaning of Mianzi was connected with the moral prestige, for the influence of ancient Chinese culture. Confucianism dominated Chinese main trend of ideology for a long time in history. Many dynasties praised highly of it. It constituted the principal part of Chinese culture. Morality was strengthened a lot by Confucianism and considered as the ultimate purpose of human beingsf lives. People set sages who had good morality as examples and admired them, while belittled these persons without morality. As a result, the more one gets the moralities, the more he enjoys the prestige. The mast...