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In ancient China, officials accused of wrongdoing would go to trial in secret. This secrecy was important because, even if the officials were found to be guilty, a public trial would damage their reputation so much they would never have the chance to make it right.

These important men needed a chance to right their wrongs, and it would be impossible if they had appeared in public, and lost face.


In Western society, you might lose face if you admit you were wrong in an argument, or if you show weakness or vulnerability. The word, however, does not carry the same weight as the Chinese word meaning prestige, honour and morality: mianzi.

Mianzi can refer to self-esteem, reputation, and social status. It dates back to the fourth century BC, but it is just as relevant today.

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Today, mianzi is a currency that can be gained and lost through behaviour and place in society, and it governs all aspects of life from business interactions to love lives.

“My girlfriend earns more than me and I feel inferior to her,” says an insecure boyfriend, afraid of losing mianzi, in an online forum. “On the one hand I’m happy because even if I didn’t work, there would be someone who could provide for me. On the other hand, I feel inferior, especially whenever we go out to eat and she wants to pay the bill.”


And according to a recent study, in the Journal of Business Research, mianzi is also controlling shopping behaviour in China.

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A group of researchers from Shenzhen University and the University of Richmond in Virginia looked into the prevalence of internet shopping addiction in China.

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The team took a survey called the Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale, which was developed in 2008, and has since been used in various studies into compulsive buying – in Brazil, Germany and the USA. After translating the survey into Chinese languages, the team gave it to two groups: one set of students and a group from the general population.


The team found 10.4 per cent of students and 29.1 per cent of the general population are compulsive buyers. Almost half, 48.6 per cent, of under 25s in the study were classified as compulsive buyers.

The results are large compared to the worldwide average of 3.4 per cent to 6.9 per cent in general population and, two per cent to 16 per cent in students, according to a meta-analysis in 2016.

This discrepancy, the authors say, is linked to mianzi.

“The concept of mianzi implies the importance of maintaining social image and status in China,” says Heping He, assistant professor at Shenzhen University, and lead author of the study. “Consumers are likely to make choices which reﬂect personalities that match their self-image or ideal selves.” Quite simply, the more money someone spends the more money they have, and money is linked to social status.

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Instead of having goods delivered to their homes, consumers in China gain mianzi by having shopping delivered to their offices, so their colleagues can see. “Receiving the purchase at one's office address may enhance one's face and thus result in a positive emotional response, which compulsive buyers crave and strive to achieve,” the authors write.

In a study in the USA, compulsive buyers reported hiding their habit by shopping online in the privacy of their own homes because they were ashamed of it. But in China, people were more likely to shop online in public, hoping people would look at their screens and see they were shopping.

In 2017, about 533 million people in China purchased goods online. Shopping online shows someone is connected to technology, He says, which is another way of gaining mianzi. “A person unable to shop online may be even considered as old-fashioned, so he/she can lose face.”

The rise in online shopping in China has also been driven by large companies pursuing aggressive sales tactics, says He.

One example is Singles Day, which takes place every year on November 11. The phenomenon started in the 1990s when a group of students invented the day as an excuse to treat themselves. In 2009, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba had its first Singles Day sale. Last year, it made $30.8 billion in sales during the day-long event. In comparison, Black Friday pulled in $6.22 billion in online sales in the USA.

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Since 2016, luxury brands in China have flocked to WeChat to sell their products. In November last year, Dior became the first brand to sell on a WeChat livestream session. According to a report by Jing Daily, ads placed on Tencent’s WeChat platform grew 61 per cent year-on-year in 2018.

But this surge is causing problems. While China has the highest savings rate in recorded history, there is a myth that this means Chinese people are thrifty. “In fact this isn't true and has never been true,” says Michael Pettis, professor of finance at Peking University.

Chinese households take home only 50 per cent of what they make in their jobs, the lowest share in the world. In other countries, people take home between 70 and 85 per cent of their salaries. This means if Chinese consumers save any part of their income at all, and don’t spend all of it, they must consume less than 50 per cent of GDP.

“In China, which is eager to see demand grow, and especially consumer demand, in the past four years banks have been encouraged to lend to households,” Pettis says. This has led to those who are more risk-taking borrowing money to fund their habits.

As a result, over the past few years household debt has soared. “We have discovered that there are many people in China, like anywhere else in the world, that will over-consume relative to their income,” Pettis adds.

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This has implications for China’s economy as a whole. China is in $34 trillion of public and private debt, according to Bloomberg. In 2017, China’s borrowing rose 17 per cent to 266 per cent of gross domestic product.

This is a greater rise in borrowing than the UK and USA had in the ten years leading up to the financial crisis. Pettis, and others, have warned if this trend continues it will lead to China’s bubble bursting, creating a whole new financial crisis.

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