I suppose my viewpoint comes from about 15 years of experience with 'face' in regards to people from China and Taiwan. Just hard to explain, but, fundamentally I think it's not exactly the same as in the West or from my experience in Thailand. For Chinese face is mostly characterized by either gain or loss of moral authority (lian) and stature within society (mianzi) and not so related to how much material wealth one has (though, with the modernization of China that's changing...find you some older Chinese in China or Taiwan and you will see the way it used to be regarding 'face'). Buying a new house won't necessarily give one face, but, throwing a housewarming party would. Outmaneuvering a business opponent in negotiations would give more face than would being president of a company. Avoiding disclosing embarassing facts about someone else would let one gain face while disclosing them would cause the discloser to lose face. Losing one's temper would result in a loss of face while being gracious in defeat would cause one to gain face.

In short I think it can be summed up more as 'worring what other people think about me' syndome and I seriously doubt it exists in the West to the extreme to which it's taken in Asia (though, yeah, of course some people in the West are just that shallow).

My experience regarding my wife and other Thais is the Thai concept of face is inherently different and I have yet to fully reach conclusions about it.

Me? I don't give two shits what other people think and if I'm angry or displeased I won't hide it just to save 'face.'

I think people who worry too much about face are inherently untrustworthy and undependable.