About Face

Last year I was one of the keynote speakers at an international conference on teenage literature held at my University. This actually put the backs up of a couple of visiting academics from overseas as I was the only speaker at the conference who did not have a PhD. I tried to explain to them about the Chinese concept of Face, but they did not seem to be appeased.

In this instance it gave the university face that they could provide their own "foreign expert" from within their own ranks. Simple.

It does give me pause that so many people find the concept of face so difficult to understand and that it is regarded as one of those inscrutable concepts that separates Eastern and Western mentality. I heard just recently of someone in Australia inviting a guest speaker to give an entire talk on the concept as if it was something that pertains only to Chinese or Japanese cultures and needs unpacking by an expert. For a fee.

Whereas the only difference is in nomenclature: in the East the concept is acknowledged for what it is and is named while in the West in shelters under a variety of more politically correct names such as prestige, leverage, or one Conversely losing face in the West is known as public embarrassment, humiliation, looking bad or being out-manoeuvred.

If the results of this mystification were not so serious sometimes it would just be laughable. Last year the Us Secretary of State, Ms. Rice, was due to visit China. The Chinese were very excited about this public acknowledgment from the US government and, as is not unnatural, diplomatic circles were a-buzz, plans were made and schedules drawn up. When, at the last minute, Ms.Rice announced that she would have to cancel the China leg of her tour it was not just a disappointment but, considering the tension between the two countries, was a diplomatic boo boo of rather large proportions. China lost face: - especially as not much importance was attached by America to this move.

Some months later, when the Chinese Government in turn canceled a proposed jaunt to America however, political pundits, armchair tacticians, the ubiquitous person-in-the-street, all were engaged in ever more fanciful speculation about what prompted this move. Theories ranging from the onset of a third world war to the start of a new alliance between China and Russia were not simply hinted at but given credence in some circles, columnists whipped upstanding American citizens into a lather wondering when the Yellow Peril would start invading and, for all one knows, smelly men on street corners felt that at last they were justified in carrying their "Repent the End of Days is Nigh" placards.

There wasn't any speculation in China, however. Everyone knew it was just about face. You shunned us so we shun you. Not a difficult concept to understand - yet far too simplistic it appears for some of the top brains in The Pentagon to figure out.

If the whole concept of face were demystified in the West it would probably ease the troubled hearts of many. Most notably those who maintain that the whole of China is looking down with bayonets fixed and burning with a desire to attack Australia. No they aren't. They're all too busy being the worlds third largest consumer of luxury goods: they are busily ammassing face so they can make a good marriage, get a good job or show old Li back in the village who the top dog is now.

The average urban citizen has no more interest in Australia than whether their child could get a good education - and plenty of face - by going to school there. They would have trouble pointing out Canberra on a map, and, far from envying the life-style, have no idea what that lifestyle is. Australia, like France or Africa is just a place on a map. More importantly, it is a place outside the Motherland.

As for the average farmer on the land - though many may have heard of Australia, their main interest, as is the main interest of farmers or agricultural workers everywhere, is getting their crops in, or finding a way to take part in the prosperity others are enjoying. It does not occur to them that to join the army and go and get killed in a war is the way to do this.

This year marks the thirtieth year since the Opening and Expansion - the time when China committed to forge trade and diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. The changes that have taken place in those thirty years cannot be exaggerated. Parents, grandparents and offspring often find themselves on opposite sides of a cultural gap so wide that they cannot comprehend each others lives. The shining cities with their innovative modern buildings reaching up into the skies, the plate-glass windowed boutiques in which salespeople who look like professional models elegantly burnish their nails, the shopping malls showcasing luxury goods from all over the world, the perfectly groomed women on their impossibly high heels, the traffic jams where Mercedes, Jaguar and high-tech SUVs and family cars wait impatiently - all these paint a portrait of China to-day.

Face rules in these cities. Just as keeping up with the Joneses, consumerism and image rule the cities of the West. It seems that, in the West, the Cold War left an indelible mark: fear of China was bred into so many minds for so long that it has become part of what defines their world. To give up this fear now would be to shake the very foundations of what some people regard as their truth. The China of The Great Famines, the Long Marches, the fanatical communist, a country where people in quaint wooden sun hats slog wearily through flooded rice paddies and all that breaks the skyline is an ancient pagoda or a concrete bunker still exists for these people. A time when there was no possibility of gaining face and the concept had all but disappeared.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, the events of more than 30 years go are encountered only as stories of one part of the long history of China for the majority of people. Nowadays whats important is the latest Disney t-shirt, or Sony laptop or blackberry.

And the driving power, the fanatical dedication, the single-minded ambition that drives this consumerism is the re-emergence of China's face.