The Duplicity of the Chinese Face

By Antoine on March 15th, 2010

It took me so long to figure this out, it’s almost embarrassing: The two different Chinese faces, 面子 miànzi and 脸 liǎn. Not being clear on those two, I recently ended up explaining how somebody’s feelings were really long. So here’s an explanation, so you guys don’t have to make the same mistake – plus some very interesting uses of the Chinese Face!So let’s start with the 面子 miànzi, this is the Chinese inner face, some body’s reputation or feelings. Confusingly, the character 面 miàn stands for things that more or less resemble a surface, like the suffix -上面 shàngmian (on top of something). Kind of superficial, eh?

But you really use it in contexts with a deeper meaning, like 保全面子 bǎoquánmiànzi – pretty literally “to save face” – meaning you are protecting your reputation, or avoiding 丢面子 diūmiànzi – pretty literally losing face.

有话说就把它说出来，别怕丢面子。
yǒuhuàshuō jiùbǎtāshuōchūlai, biépàdiūmiànzi.
If you have something to say, say it, don’t be afraid to lose face.

So far pretty straightforward. But here’s a good one with 面子: If you defer to someones wishes or do something for some one’s sake, you buy their face. I found this one particularly unusual:

他很买面子，答应给我帮忙。
tā hěn mǎimiànzi, dāyīng gěi wǒ bāngmáng.
He was really considerate and agreed to help me.

Oh and another thing that confused me: Some of you may have been wondering, why this (sur)face-related character is found in so many words linked to wheat-based noodles. That’s actually the result of the simplification of Chinese characters. The noodle-面 used to look like this: 麵.

And as for the physical face, that’s the 脸. You can see the “meat” radical on the left, and a phonetic on the right that is usually pronounced jian, yan or something like that. Apparently, lian is phonetically related. Oh well. Aside from the regular use, here’s two cool ones:

我脸红了。
Wǒ liǎnhóng le.
I blushed.

你这个小白脸儿！
nǐ zhège xiǎobáiliǎnr!
You’re such a baby face!

Latter refers to really cute boys and their “white faces”. Also used to describe metrosexuals. In my opinion mostly used as a compliment.

Any stories where you lost face by using the wrong face?

Categorized under: Learn Mandarin.
Tagged with: expressions, face, lose face, mandarin, save face, 脸, 面子.

The Duplicity of the Chinese Face

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