IntroductionAssuming that interpersonal communication is a "deeply cultured process," (Philipsen, 1992) this essay illuminates the different ways interpersonal communication is conceptualized in Nigeria and China through reviewing studies of one core symbol -face -in the two cultures. It demonstrates that embedded in the face concept are culture-specific notions of personhood that give rise to culture specific models of interpersonal communication: the individual based, self-oriented, and rational Nigerian face is enacted through an "information game" model of social interaction whereas the relationbased, other-directed, and emotional Chinese face is performed via a "relationship game" model of interpersonal communication.A call for more empirical research of Chinese interpersonal communication from a cultural perspective is also made. This paper discovered that over the past several decades, communication studies scholars have called for attention to the "culturally constituted" nature of interpersonal communication (e.g