Mianzi

When you just know a person, Leung et al. (2011) suggest that give them gifts to make them get mianzi, and create friendship (renqing) with them. Mianzi refers to "an individual's prestige in society, a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through achieving success, and through ostentation (Leung et al., 2011).”

In ethnic Chinese society, mianzi, or face, is an individual’s possession of the respect, pride, and dignity (Goffman, 1955), which is similar with the Western concept of reputation or dignity (Chan, Denton, & Tsang, 2003). Mianzi can also defined as position in the social network of person , as well as others determine whether you ample and proper implementation of appropriate behavior to get this respect status.

King (1993) pointed out that people can through a social skill named face work to maintain others or themselves’ mianzi. Maintaining the mianzi is not only the

personal business but also the behavior with close people, and how those people treat them, which is focus on reciprocity mianzi including obligation, depend or protection of dignity; on the other hand, it is trying to keep each other feel proud. For example, the gifts which don’t correspondence the recipients’ status will make the recipient feel lose mianzi; also the givers will lose their mianzi. Another example, the amount of red envelope as a gift to attend wedding must reflect the cost of the wedding and also the relation between two sides. Later the recipients attend the other sides’ wedding, they also have to give the red envelope. Through these skills, giving one's mianzi can be accumulated and exchange for proper interest or favor in the future (Leung et al., 2011).

"Face work" is important for both Western and Eastern society, as it is commonly practiced in social interactions to emphasize interpersonal harmony (Chan et al., 2003).

Face can be described as a protection of one's image in a relational situation, and practice of face work has strong impacts on business decisions (Buckley, Clegg, & Tan, 2006; Ting-Toomey, 1988).

Face can divided into “lian” and “mianzi” (Leung et al., 2011). Mianzi, is external face which reflects a person's social status representing his/ her prestige and honor which can be accumulated by personal efforts such as by success or ostentation; on the other hand, lian is internal face which determined one’s social confidence in the integrity of his/ her moral trait (Gao, 1998; Hinze, 2002; Hwang, 2006; Joy, 2001; Leung et al., 2011; Qi, 2011; Redding & Ng, 1983; Shi, Ichiro, & Jin, 2011; Zhang, Cao, &

Grigoriou, 2011). Therefore, there is a Cantonese saying that mianzi is given by someone, and lian is losing by yourself. In other words, lian cannot be gained but can be lost, and people cannot maintain their relationship with others if they loses lian as they

feels guilty as well as mianzi is a social asset which can be banked and exchanged for favors in the future (Leung et al.2011; Yau, 1988). As an individual's possession of mianzi needs visible social success in matching well-established expectations, and the individual will have more mianzi when he/she moves up the social hierarchy.

Chinese culture has strict norms for interpersonal hierarchical structure.

According to the definition of mianzi, social statuses reflect a person's mianzi (Leung et al., 2011). People will meet and reaction appropriate behavior base on their social status and become an interpersonal discipline and norm (Bond & Hwang, 1986).

This specification makes the ethnic Chinese are particularly sensitive about losing face (Redeling & Ng, 1982). The behavior regardless of mianzi means that someone do not care about others opinions or criticize, they were reluctant to maintain their status in the social network; vice versa. For example, in Taiwan customs, the elder visiting newborn babies must be given "gift," and the value of the gift is reflecting the elders’

relationship with parents (Yan, 1996). In previous study of Eastern and Western culture, it found that the concern of mianzi will lead to a different luxury consumer behavior (Wong & Ahuvia, 1998). For instance, many entrepreneurs in Taiwan, even SMEs, they will purchase limousine in order to show the difference between the general class and them.

In ethnic Chinese context, people would rather make sacrifices to maintain their faces than lose face (Lee & Dawes, 2005). Mianzi is important not only for Chinese people's personal life, but for their business life. For example, Hong Kong businessmen claim that mianzi is consistently a key factor during professional interactions (Redeling & Ng, 1982). Not only Hong Kong people, but most of ethnic

agreements in ethnic Chinese business. Furthermore, Redeling and Ng (1982) found that for middle level business executives in Hong Kong, mianzi has an important influence during business negotiations. Giving mianzi to someone in a business negotiation is considered highly desirable, whereas to harm or challenge other's mianzi is perceived as highly undesirable.

Therefore, mianzi should affect the shopping decisions of Chinese, including the choose and purchase of present. Wang (2007) found that people who care about mianzi will affect people choose their present such as the amount of present, as well as the choice of brand. Therefore, the more a person pay attention to mianzi should be care more about whether the present match or over others’ social status and whether appropriate to the interpersonal relationship between them. If you send the wrong present, the other might lose their mianzi, thus affecting their relationship, causing regression of relations.