"Face"

[visa2003]

This may be a bit too deep and meaningfull for this time of the morning, but after reading and posting on the more serious threads on this forum, a common theme seems to be the issue of "face".
I have lived for a while in southern Africa and worked with the desert Aboriginals of Australia and in both cases it did not take me long to understand the people and their rules in life. Everyone has pride and a certain amount of ambition, and in these cases it was realatively easy to predict how people would react to a set of cicumstances.
This does not seem to be the case in Asia!!!
How did it come about that the issue of "face" became so complicated that a foreigner that has not been brought up in Asia, by Asians, cannot understand how it all works?

[Mr Floatplane]

How did it come about that the issue of "face" became so complicated that a foreigner that has not been brought up in Asia, by Asians, cannot understand how it all works?

That’s a tricky question, I‘ll have tentative crack at it!

The few Thai friends I have tried to ask about this have admitted that they to do not fully understand it – they live it - but they cannot explain it in the manner in which you are seeking. To me, in that respect ‘face’ is like a cultural grammar ie, one may very well speak a langue, even if they cannot state the ‘rules’ and the ‘whys’ of that langue.
As Mont Redmond writes in ‘Wondering into Thai Culture’: ‘The only people who can be philosophical about their ‘face’ in Thailand are those who have lost it or never had it’ - that would include we falang trying to understand it, and that would exclude the Thais living with it!!!!


Many human traits are positive when executed in a balanced manner, but destructive when take to extreme. To me ‘face’ falls into the latter!
I may be wrong, but I think ‘face’ came about via (or is linked to) ‘Bunkhun’. Thais encourage interdependence. They have they idea of ‘Bunkhun’ (indebted goodness) - this is like a currency of obligation – I did you a good turn, now you owe me a favor…My rice crop failed, but you gave me enough to eat, so now I owe you...
Now we have established a relationship! As I am owed a good turn by you, I do not wish to offend you, and as you are indebted to me, you do not wish to offend me – that is not a bad situation in itself, but if taken to extreme, then we can end up with me denying the fact that I stole rice out of your store, and you actually vouching for me despite catching me red handed! Preserving our relationship of ‘Bunkhun’ is perceived by both us as more important to our long term survival than admitting any temporal wrong doing or guilt. That being so, we need some mechanism by which to preserve our interdependence through lives daily dramas. In the west, we rely more on truth and forgiveness (when things go wrong), while the Thais instead seem to place the emphasize on innocence and denial. ‘Face’ seems the muddled up results of this….

Now back to your question! Why is face so complicated and difficult to understand? Any mode of behavior biased on deception and in covering up the truth has by its very nature to be difficult, if not impossible, to understand from the outside, it also has to be complicated. Just think of a child telling a lie, to uphold that lie, she then has to tell another lie, then another again, until the whole story is grows complicated and difficult to understand! Now the child will adamantly say that her version of the universe make scenes, and has a logic and consistency all of its own, she may even believe that! But try as they may, the kids parents are never going to get into that world…

I have lived for a while in southern Africa and worked with the desert Aboriginals of Australia and in both cases it did not take me long to understand the people and their rules in life…. it was realatively easy to predict how people would react to a set of cicumstances. This does not seem to be the case in Asia!!!

‘Face’ is predominantly used as a way of telling a lie or denying the truth. One lie leads to another lie and there does not need to be an external consistency and logic between lies and the ‘rules’ and ‘reactions’ that follow from them.
Cultures that are not bent on deception must surely be easier to understand than one based on a deceptive smile on a concealing face.

Man I ramble on!

[LivinLOS]

Wow the Bunkhun idea is really insightfull.. I hadnt considered that implication but you have definately got something there.. The bunkhun exchange is another thing that permeates Thai relationships that we are oblivious too a lot of the time..

Without this sounding insulting.. did you come to that conclusion yourself or was it in that 'wondering into Thai culture' (which sounds like I want to read) as I think you have at least a major influencing factor in the face game there and one that seems obvious once heard but I had missed while thinking about it..

[Thin White Duke]

Mr F,thanks for your extremely insightful reply!

I had a feeling that there must be alot more to this subject and your post makes a good start.

Personally I thought it might have a lot to do with 'networking' which the Jewish nation are so successful at.Secondly, it is present in other Asian cultures which makes me think it probably has direct links into Buddism somehow(both assumptions)

Anyway,hopefully others have more insight into the subject as it should help clear up a lot of misunderstandings.

[steve@thaib]

Hey Mr. F, thanks for getting us off to a good start. I looked at this topic when it was first posted and thought 'hmm, big question that' and left it to someone else to kick us off.

A few early thoughts from me (only had one coffee yet)

You can't consider the concept of face in isolation, it must be coupled with caste and \ or social standing. And I also think that Buddhism as understood and practised in Thailand has a part to play in understanding it.

I think our western culture rejects hierarchy, our royal family (UK) are a joke, no more than a tourist attraction, and our MPs are regularly hounded out of office by newspapers. We tend not to put people on pedestals. When the traffic cops stop us we will think nothing of telling them to get a proper job, we would not dream of paying them to look the other way. The power structure here is fairly level, though of course it has the odd bump.

Thai society is more like a pyramid, with those on the bottom accepting their position and looking down on those who they can; we have a saying which covers it nicely: shit rolls downhill.

Buddhism perpetuates this: 'the hair on my head is lower than the soles of your feet'. Thais are taught from day one that some are higher \ of better standing \ are more important than others. Look around, even here on this board, and you will see mention of 'heads of family' or 'village elders'. Hierarchy exists in all parts of Thai life.

It seems to be implicitly understood from very early on that you must always respect your 'betters' and that your reward for this sort of behaviour will be that you are given respect yourself. Of course, like any concept it is twisted to fit the circumstances.

Maybe part of our problem with it is that we don't fit into the structure. We are not poor, we are clearly well travelled and reasonably worldly wise, and yet we openly consort with the 'fallen' women from the lower orders. Those of us who go and live in the villages must seem strange indeed.

[dizbuster]

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

Wow the Bunkhun idea is really insightfull.. I hadnt considered that implication but you have definately got something there.. The bunkhun exchange is another thing that permeates Thai relationships that we are oblivious too a lot of the time..

Without this sounding insulting.. did you come to that conclusion yourself or was it in that 'wondering into Thai culture' (which sounds like I want to read) as I think you have at least a major influencing factor in the face game there and one that seems obvious once heard but I had missed while thinking about it..

In the book "Thailand Fever", they give a similar explanation to this, in one of the earlier chapters. I cannot remember off hand, but I am fairly sure they also mention "bunkhun" as well.

[LivinLOS]

I had heard of Bunkhun but had not assicated the avoiding bunkhun being a motivating factor in face..

There is a lot more to face than that alone but it does have a strong bearing, not being endebted to another..

[Mr Floatplane]

‘Without this sounding insulting.. did you come to that conclusion yourself or was it in that 'wondering into Thai culture' (which sounds like I want to read) as I think you have at least a major influencing factor in the face game there and one that seems obvious once heard but I had missed while thinking about it..’

Well shucks! Nope, that isn’t in the book mentioned, my own little theory….

As Steve@thaib says, “you can't consider the concept of face in isolation” and it just seems to me that ‘face’ must be linked to Bunkhun - and also to hierarchy as he pointed out…
From what I understand Bunkhun itself has a hierarchical aspect to it. Taken to the extreme it could possible result in the village giving all of its rice to one man (Thaksin!) in its belief that he is now indebted to them. Thus to call him a corrupt power-monger would kind of throw their whole social system on its head. So how do they get around this? Well they come up with the concept of ‘face’ !
Hmmm, maybe that is too simplistic an example…
As I said, I maybe wrong, but I do think ‘face’ is linked ‘Bunkhun’ – but I suppose how they play out though one-another in specific situations is too complicated for my skull to phantom…

[fun2have]

good stuff BMs, complex matter you are discussing here.
for such a strong thing permeating all levels of thai society, the dos and donts of face is alien to most farangs.
we all have heard stories of the bar owners wife's "sister/cousin" fiddling the checkbins, but the wife will have nothing of her being sacked because of this social contraints on their relationships.

[fun2have]

just a thought, i sort of understand the wai etc.
but have watched my gf recieve the wai from men her senior.
i asked why a man more senior in age to her did this, she replied he friend my father. thanks for the answer rhodes scholar i said, trying to fathom another mystery of face.

[Crunch]

Good thread, found this link

http://www.thaiwebsites.com/thaicharacter.asp

hard going but might help a bit..or not

[shark1963]

Have no real idea about the Face thing in Asia. Just my first experience with it years ago.

Once my TGF made a big puplicity for an event in a restaurant she knew. There should come a famous thai musician with traditional thai music. So everybody she knew she told to come to this event , as they made some advertisement for the music and there should be a buffet also. Entrence fee about 50 D-Mark inclusive food that time.

So i had no time and no interesst at that time and stayed at home. The next day she was bloody p1ssed off. Asking what happened she answered the music was bad and not the musician as told. Eating was awfull and really less. Ok i answered and why are you so pissed of?

She told me she had to pay the entrance fee back to all the people she told of this event ( about 14 of her friends came = 14 x 50 DM = 350 € now) plus she invited them all for dinner after. I was totally shocked! Why you have to pay them i asked and she just answered she lost her face ......

Well at that night my misses blow about 800-900 euro in the air just to make her friends feel well again. I couldnt speak one word anymore. She said you dont understand me.... end of discussion

[visa2003]

Thanks Guys!!! As if I wasn't confused enough already, now you throw in this idea of "Bunkun" at me!!!
The reason I asked the question in the first place was not really to understand the BGs as I have given up on trying to understand women a long time ago, but to find out if I am doing the right thing towards a Thai guy I met in Patong about 18 months ago.
I went to him to get a tattoo done and he spent a lot of time and effort on the design I wanted before doing the work. After the job I would go around to his shop for a few drinks of an evening and became friends with him and his crew. During one of these evenings he mentioned that he would like to get hold of some Australian tattoo magazines as he was getting a lot of customers from Oz. Of course, when I got home I started sending him mags every couple of months. It was no problem for me and helped keep a little contact with LOS. (this was before I found this forum.)
On my next tour I took some more mags with me to give him and he seemed to be thrilled by the whole idea. I thought it was a little out of proportion to what I was actually doing! Anyway, I wanted a tattoo that I had done in Pattaya modified and he jumped right at it. Job finished, so i tried to pay him as in the West nothing is for free! He refused, so I went and bought a bottle of Sang Som with mixers for him and his friends. The evening did not go as I would have thought as the atmosphere was a little cool. Now I am wondering if, by buying the whisky, I actually offended him.
After reading the posts above, maybe he thought he was getting himself out of debt to me for the mags and then I go and put him back in it by buying the whisky?
The mags and the whisky mean nothing to me except as a sign of friendship but maybe it means more to him?

[steve@thaib]

Maybe yes? You could have come across as patronising? Sounds like You've done nothing wrong to me, and I'm sure I would be as puzzled by that as you are.

In my experience, the Thai people I have dealt with have been happy to give and receive gifts, but yes maybe he thought he had balanced the books and you had gone and put him in debt again?

[LivinLOS]

Odd one..

In my experience you cn never offend a Thai guy by giving him a bottle of whisky !!! I mean never !!! From police to the MB taxi driver a bottle of spirits (of the correct level of expense, you dont give the chief of police a bottle of sang som) always seems to be recieved well and not create any issues..

So what can if have been.. Very hard to say, may have been he was only politely declining the money ?? May have just been one of those things.. Maybe there was something else happening you were not aware of (may not even have involved you) ??

[bigsquat]

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

...
In my experience you cn never offend a Thai guy by giving him a bottle of whisky !!! I mean never !!! From police to the MB taxi driver a bottle of spirits (of the correct level of expense, you dont give the chief of police a bottle of sang som) always seems to be recieved well and not create any issues..
...

That occurred to me, maybe sangsome wasn't "the correct level of expense" for a tattoo (in their eyes)?

[LivinLOS]

Nah I see nothing wrong with what you did from what info we have.. Of course there could be all kinds of little things or it could have been something unrelated to you..

Its possible that he thought he wanted to even the score but I would think thats a slim chance myself..

[visa2003]

This is part of the problem I seem to have getting to know the Thais. Just when I think I've got a handle on how to get along with them, something happens that I just don't understand!
I don't know if he thought I was trying to make a big man of myself by throwing money around and being shown up in front of his friends or what the story really is, but it makes it real hard to get to know these people.
Maybe I am over analyzing and should not really give a Sh!t, things might actually go easier because then they could say "just another stupid farang" and forgive all my mistakes in etiquette????!!!