When doing business or investing in China, there are certain basic psychological factors that one must understand.
Let's first take a look at some news:
"On February 14th, China's professional research and consulting organization in the high-end consumption field, Fortune Character Institute, released the "2022 China Luxury Report." This is the 13th consecutive year that the institute has released the report. Dr. Zhou Ting, the chief researcher of the report and the director of Fortune Character Institute, believes that high-end consumption centered around luxury goods is the main driving force for China's domestic demand."
According to the data, in 2022, the global luxury goods market further recovered, achieving a year-on-year growth of 17%, with a market size of 2.545 trillion yuan. In the same year, the sales of luxury goods in China reached 956 billion yuan, a slight decrease of 4% compared to 2021, accounting for 38% of the global luxury goods market. Chinese people are still the most important force in global luxury goods consumption.
In an interview, Dr. Zhou Ting, the director of Fortune Character Institute, said, "Chinese people are the world's largest group of luxury goods consumers. The Chinese market is also the largest luxury goods market in the world. There are still many cities in China with strong growth potential, and the Chinese duty-free industry is also an important channel for high-quality consumption."
Have you ever wondered why Chinese people are so keen on buying luxury goods? Is it because of China's large population? Is it because China's wealthy people are particularly rich? Or is it because Chinese people are most obsessed with vanity?
Today's topic, I will try to explore the stories behind Chinese people's culture of "face" and identity recognition, hoping to help business owners who are operating in China to further refine their business strategies.
Firstly, to avoid any misunderstandings, I would like to clarify the definition of "face" culture:
Face culture refers to the importance placed on personal reputation and social status in Chinese culture. Face can be understood as a person’s image and dignity in society. In Chinese culture, people often avoid doing things that may harm their own or others’ face. For example, criticizing others or rejecting invitations in public may be considered impolite because it may harm the other person’s face. Instead, people usually maintain each other’s face by showing respect and courtesy.
Let's take a look at some of the crazy phenomena that arise in Chinese culture due to "face" issues that are difficult to understand:
By understanding these issues, we may be able to better understand the Chinese people's inner world and find many marketing secrets for multinational companies to succeed in China.
China's geographical environment and ancient small-scale agricultural economy
As we all know, China's geographical environment is divided into half inland and half sea. Compared to small countries and mountainous coastal countries in the West, China's plains are relatively abundant in land resources and can develop agriculture. In comparison to commerce, agriculture requires more stable dwelling places and populations, which to some extent limited the mobility of our ancient population.
At the same time, due to the backward productivity, China's west is a plateau and east is the sea, travel was not easy, and was basically in a semi-closed state. Although there was foreign trade exchange, for various reasons, it was not as frequent as it is now.Therefore, the stability of the small-scale agricultural economy and the backwardness of ancient transportation made the ancient people adopt the concept of "loving the land and settling down".Except for the imperial examination system and officialdom, most people did not move around frequently. In addition, developing agriculture in ancient times was generally dependent on nature. The productivity of small-scale agricultural economy was limited and required a lot of labor. This is why the continuity of the family line was particularly important in ancient China, because more able-bodied labor was needed for household production.
Even so, neighbors' help was still needed, whether it was for household chores or job-seeking outside the home. It required the collective strength of local clans and gentry, as well as the help of fellow countrymen from other regions, to achieve better development. Therefore, it is very necessary to maintain unity among family and fellow countrymen, which is why China has a strong family culture and places special emphasis on the relationship between blood and geography, with blood relationship being the most important. As a result, traditional Chinese society is a society of acquaintances, as compared to modern society.
A society with low mobility that needs mutual help of acquaintances provides a fertile ground for maintaining relationships and unity. So, how do we maintain relationships, unity and face? Confucian culture comes to the fore.In addition to being helpful in maintaining China's governance and cultural heritage, it also has a great impact on social harmony and collective culture, especially Confucianism's culture of rituals and shame has a great influence on the formation of face.
The Influence of Confucianism and Shame Culture
Confucianism emphasizes the importance of moral standards, which play a role in maintaining unity and relationships, making interpersonal and social relationships harmonious and united.These moral cultural norms, after thousands of years of development, have become our unconscious beliefs and customs, and they control people's behavior invisibly. This is the source of "face" and "guanxi" (relationships).
For example, in the Confucian culture, the story of "The people of Qi do not eat food obtained by begging" recorded in "Liji·Tangong" is about the time of the Spring and Autumn Period when there was a famine in Qi State. A nobleman named Qian Ao gave food to the starving refugees and said, "Jie, come and eat!" The hungry people felt insulted and did not eat even though Qian Ao apologized. This incident, of course, involves personal dignity, but even though Qian Ao apologized, he did not eat, which is also a manifestation of maintaining his "face".
Chinese people also believe in "li shang wang lai" (reciprocate politeness), as reflected in the Confucian classics. For example, in "Liji·Quli Shang", it is recorded that "Not going when one should go is against courtesy; going when one should not go is also against courtesy." This is a further explanation of "li shang wang lai". Therefore, in daily life, when someone gives you a gift, you should also give them a gift in return, otherwise, it would be considered as not giving the other person face, and the relationship would be damaged.
Chinese people also pay attention to giving face to their superiors, which is related to the hierarchical concept of "jun jun, chen chen, zi zi, fu fu" (ruler and subject, father and son). Maintaining the superior's face is conducive to maintaining order and harmony.
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In short, the culture of li requires people to maintain their own identity and position, and to maintain the other party's face according to the rules of "li" when interacting with others. If one acts according to "li" and one's identity, the other party will feel honored; if one does not, or violates basic etiquette, the other party will feel that one is "impolite", does not give face, and will face criticism and ridicule.
Because of this, people feel that losing face is a shameful thing. Conversely, if one gains face, one will feel honored. Therefore, people like to maintain their face.
In Confucianism, there is also a corresponding emphasis on shame, such as Mencius' statement that "The heart of compassion is inherent in all people; the heart of shame and dislike is inherent in all people...The heart of compassion is benevolence; the heart of shame and dislike is righteousness...It is not given to me by external things; I have it inherently." This mentions the importance of the sense of shame. In fact, there are many discussions about "shame" in Confucianism, so the sense of shame is also one of the traditional ideological concepts, and it plays an important role in regulating social behavior.
The characteristics of "face" under the influence of Confucian culture.
1. Emphasis on formal face:
People obtain face by following the etiquette and customs under the influence of Confucian culture. As mentioned earlier, acting according to "li" (propriety/etiquette) will bring face, because "li" restrains people's behavior. By understanding "li," people can understand what is honorable and what is shameful.Having face is an honorable behavior, while losing face is shameful. Therefore, people follow the etiquette and customs to obtain face.
However, in general, when "li" has actual moral norms, maintaining face can help maintain good relationships and social order among people. But if people only pay lip service to "li" and gain face without actually following moral norms, it is a false face and meaningless. In reality, many people play a face-saving game, appearing hypocritical and even suffering for the sake of face. This is not advisable.
2. The face of a family or a group is more important than that of an individual
According to the previous analysis, it can be found that maintaining the collective interests is beneficial to maintaining individual interests, and this concept deeply rooted in the ideology of Confucianism. Therefore,we generally attach great importance to the interests of the family and take pride in the honor of the family.In real life, for example, if the city where you live receives an honor, you will also feel proud; but when someone in the family does something that discredits the family, people will despise that person, and then that person will lose face, and the family will also feel ashamed. In serious cases, they may not be able to live in the local area because they will be isolated.
However, of course, with the increasing mobility of modern society, your bad reputation in your hometown may affect your reputation in the local area and make it difficult for you to live well. But if you go to another city, you can start a new life and regain face, and then live a normal life. Therefore, the constraint behavior of face and its role in maintaining the stability of the community of acquaintances are relatively not as significant in modern society.
3. Emphasis on the relationship between social status and the responsibility to maintain face
Influenced by Confucian culture, people in work and life will consciously care about the face of elders and superiors. Generally speaking, the higher the status, the greater the face, while the lower the status, the relatively smaller the face.
In addition to cultural influence, maintaining the face of superiors can help you establish a more harmonious relationship, which to some extent, is beneficial to your acquisition of life and work resources. On the other hand, blatantly disrespecting superiors is a signal that you want to break the relationship, and once the relationship is broken, it means that you cannot obtain the corresponding resources.
Therefore, people will to some extent, maintain the face of superiors. However, excessively pleasing superiors is also not advisable, and using face to gain illegal benefits is also not advisable.
4. According to the closeness of relationships, the responsibility to maintain face differs, and through the granting of face, people establish and maintain social relationships, and bring themselves closer to others, in order to enjoy the benefits and convenience that come with those relationships.
Due to China's kinship-based network of relationships, maintaining relationships is not based on egalitarianism, but rather on a circle-based hierarchy of closeness and distance, where those who are farther away have weaker connections. On this basis, "face" also emphasizes the importance of hierarchy and closeness. Scholar Huang Guangguo divides human relationships into emotional relationships, mixed relationships, and instrumental relationships. Emotional relationships mainly refer to pure emotional relationships such as blood relatives; mixed relationships mainly refer to friends and other relationships that are a mixture of emotion and interest; instrumental relationships refer to unfamiliar relationships based on interests.
Based on these relationships, as well as the need to obtain emotional and material benefits, people determine how much "face" to give to specific individuals, and establish connections with other people in society, in order to obtain corresponding emotional satisfaction and social resources, and maintain their own lives and survival.
Therefore, we can see that due to the influence of Confucian culture, people in China attach great importance to collective interests and "face", and "face" is closely related to one's status, kinship, and other factors. People can also use "face" to establish relationships and enjoy the social capital that comes with them.
Have you noticed that China is different from some ethnic groups strongly influenced by religion? Although the hierarchy system did exist in ancient China, it rarely affected people's social mobility. Instead, the influence of Confucian culture and agricultural economy had a more profound impact on Chinese people's thinking. Therefore, Chinese people's identity is more based on personal background, blood relations, and Confucian moral constraints rather than a hierarchy concept.
Furthermore, China has always been a secular country, although it is deeply influenced by Confucian culture, utilitarianism prevails.In today's economic development and urbanization, where individual contacts become less frequent, and personal differences become more significant, the scale of evaluating a person focuses more on their economic status. Therefore, in today's increasingly personalized society, displaying one's economic strength through external features is an important means of maintaining and saving face.
In such an environment,luxury goods, with their low practicality, high scarcity, and high prices, naturally fit Chinese people's desire to emphasize their personal status through important external expressions. Even when it comes to car consumption, global automakers are competing to launch continuously wider and longer car models in China to cater to the Chinese people's love for face. Even if a larger car body generally leads to higher fuel consumption, only the car owner knows about the fuel consumption, but the larger the car, the more face one has, and everyone pays more attention to me.
In conclusion, from the mechanisms behind face, the role of face in social harmony, and the problems caused by face, it can be seen that the study of face is essential in helping us understand the fundamental reasons behind some social phenomena and issues.
