A while back I am also thinking of this question, which led me to think about Klingon Honor, which led me to think of the meta origin of Klingon’s Honor comes from Samurai’s honor… which resemble “face”

From there, I posted the version 1 of how Klingon Honor is a Mistranslation of Face in here: https://startrek.website/post/432321

Version 2 is at reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/158nyup/klingon_honor_itself_is_a_mistranslation_both_in/. It’s far more refined.

TLDR: Klingon doesn’t have Honor; they have “face” (due to meta reason of translating “face” to Honor). If you think about face, even cheating is allow; and if you consider cloaking is a type of cheating, then it’s not against face. Oh, and a society that focus on face will inevitablely have a high level of corruption dominated by those in power, be it China, Korea, or Klingon.

He stepped down from CMO by 2265, and served under McCoy as “general physician”

I would like to correct Shangdi as “a term applied to the supreme deity in Chinese” for precision

While Shangdi has full prior history, if one encounter references to Shangdi outside of China mainland, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, as well as various Chinese dispora in the west, it refers to Christian God - even Catholics, despite officially Catholics use tianzhu. In fact, during my research on face, one article dated from 1926 actually refered Shangdi in manners that only make sense within Christianity.

I don’t know how it is at SEA, however.

I found going from Mandarin to Cantonese and vice versa typically just involve some one-to-one replacement, and drop/add some characters: 你|为什么|不要|給|我面子 -> 你點解唔俾面我. Even so, I don’t think in mandarin you need the “要” (so it should be 你为什么不給我面子) Obviously in a dialogue you even drop the 你 and possibly 我

For all I know, this could be inspired by your article. As stated, Daystorm had many explaination regarding the seemingly contradictory nature of Klingon Honor.

In fact, depends on how one see it, arguing that Klingon’s Honor is either “faces” or similar to it, is merely narrowing the gap from the western/humanism idea of honor to “some aliens have different idea of honor”, by placing it in something that is from Earth, and in a multicultural society, still influenced by them and not understanding it fully.

Regarding trusted and trustworthy: eveyr culture like trust, but different culture have different degree regarding that. How much will one sacrifice, whether that sacrifice is acceptable, etc.

I think ultimately it depends on when things changed. If we decide to play the long game regarding honor, how is a Chinese honor differ from that of Anicent Greek and Romans? That being said, the main reason I brought this theory up is due to the common complain about Klingon’s honor. If it’s just your typical hide an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, no one will be confused about it.

Even so, the fact that the late 19th century westerners realize that translating face to honor is an imperfect translation (there are more paid documents that record such) means that “face is only similar to honor” is a worthwhile argument.

Disclaimer: I will just say that I am Ethnic Chinese and leave it at that.

In a way, I am basically using Lemmy as a semi-rough draft before pushing to Reddit.

Anyway, want to check: “give [someone] face”, you meant “給/賞/俾面”? Because my understanding, which is affirmed by the cantonese dicitonary words.hk, is “to do something for somebody as a gesture of respect, even if one may not be very eager to do so”

Regarding cloaking: I was probably stretching it to relate it to “Face”, but felt I have to do so due to cloaking being used as common argument of stating the contradictory nature of Klingon’s Honor. Now in terms of modern war, I don’t think anyone will complain about cloak nowadays, so I decided to move the goal post, so to speak, and considering cheating in video games, which every gamers know it’s done by mostly Mainlanders. Why they do it and don’t feel they are “losing face”… well, it’s tough. I am trying to guess, but even then I feel like I am grasping at straws.

(answering StillPaisleyCat) Regarding understanding concept of Faces: I quoted Lu’Xun to illustrate the ungraspable nature of face, because IMHO, it is. Lu’Xun lived in Qing/Early Republic era, in mainland. I live is a place that is influenced heavily by western culture and modernization. Sicne this is a webpage at the west, most of us are still probably “western” in our day to day that if one actually think of Faces, it became confusing. You can feel it’s related but not quite actual honor. The only difference is that we can actually observe the end results of following a Face culture, or if “fortunate” (no it’s not) get to work in a Chinese environment where Faces are so important you hate it.

Trying to find anything about Faces is problematic, because it’s mostly just 3rd party observation at best and opinions at worst, regardless of whether they are from westerns who studied Chinese cultures, or those in the Sino sphere that is attempting to explain Faces - may as well stick with someone famous. In my current draft, I decided to conclude it with the last line form Lu’Xun’s article on face: 中國人要「面子」，是好的，可惜的是這「面子」是「圓機活法」，善於變化，於是就和「不要臉」混起來了。長谷川如是閒說「盜泉」云：「古之君子，惡其名而不飲，今之君子，改其名而飲之。」(It’s good that Chinese want face, but unfortunately the desired “Faces” is just “Cure based on situation”, and thus mixed with “don’t want faces” – just like in regard to a spring known as “Thief’s Spring”: “Gentleman of Old days refuse to drink from it due to its bad name; Gentleman of today change its name and drink from it”)

It’s something felt, hard to explain, and in terms of how it’s being practice commonly, should be chuck in deep sea with a rock.