“I thought you’re quite old! Found out that you were quite young! You didn’t take care of yourself or what!?”

That’s what someone said to me today! Instead of being polite, and refraining from comment or ignoring it; I spoke out! Just senseless, rude and … made him lose a lot of face, IMHO! The odd thing is that people who say that often find that it is impossible to take their foot of their mouth afterwards.

What I find most puzzling though, and I really don’t get, is that for a society that puts importance on face, a comment like that really just makes a speaker lose a ton of face. It’s hard to win face back after you open your mouth like that! Or am I completely misunderstanding the concept of face?

Mind you, I probably didn’t win too many friends today either… but it had to be done! Sometimes you have no choice. I explained quietly to him out of the earshot of his colleagues that I was offended by his remarks, that I didn’t think he ought to say such things… did it do any good? No idea.

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