Falling Down: A Cultural Primer

Several of you asked in the comments, or expressed concern, that no one helped me when I fell. So, let me explain that a bit:

Here, falling is losing face, so if anyone helped you, it would be like acknowledging how much face you lost. They think it's better to just ignore the fact you fell down. They're trying to help you save face. Also, people can sue here for personal litigation, and there are lots of cases of people being blamed for causing trouble. So people are reluctant to help anyone out.

It's the same if someone cries: you are supposed to ignore it because crying is losing face.

Face is such a big deal here, and most of the time, it's for things that don't matter so much in America. But they matter a lot here. So we just get used to this kind of treatment.

People also smile when they are angry. I asked my students, "How do you know if they were really angry?" They said, "I don't know, you just find out later when they get back at you or don't help you."

As the Chinese would say, aiya! It's very difficult to read people here at times.