*An individual’s lian can be preserved by faithful compliance with ritual or social norms.*
Having lian “represents the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character, the loss of which makes it impossible for him to function properly in the community”.
Both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction.
- Bu yao lian (‘doesn’t want face’; 不要臉) means that he or she is nasty, shameless, and immoral: A great insult to his or her moral character.
- Diulian (shame; 丟臉) is a result of wrong-doing regardless of the presence of an audience.
Knowing what kind of qualities are most appreciated by others in one’s social network, a person may deliberately do face-work to enhance one’s social or positional status by showing off these most appreciated qualities.
A person may adopt some tactics of ingratiation to enhance the resource allocators’s face so that the latter might reciprocate by allocating the resources in a way to benefits the ingratiator.
Tactics include presenting compliments of sufficient credibility, conforming with his/her opinions and behavior, giving gifts or doing other pleasant and rewarding things for others
When a man wants to ask for a favor from a resource allocator of some prestige, he first assesses his position relative to the allocator and the likelihood that he may be successful.
If the request is accepted, then the allocator ‘gave him mianzi’ and his face is increased.
If the request is rejected, the allocator does not give him ‘mianzi’, which then reflects badly on his own mianzi and blame the allocator, especially when the allocator occupies a lower social status.
