Looking at the cultural differences between China and the West from the myth of Chang'e flying to the moon and the myth of the Golden Fleece

Basic Differences between Chinese and American Cultures: Comparative Analysis of Chinese Concepts and American Concepts

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Collectivism: Generally speaking, Chinese and other Asian cultures reflect An orientation that social scientists call “collectivism.” These cultures place greater emphasis on group cooperation and personal humility.

Individualism: In contrast, Americans generally display an individualistic orientation. They value independence more. Self-actualization, if not an expectation, is at least more acceptable. Americans value “freedom” from external constraints more.

Social relations: Chinese social relations are more formal and hierarchical than Americans. The Chinese seem to be very accustomed to hierarchical structures, and they can determine how they behave based on their position and routines within the structure. Americans focus more on informal and equal relationships. Americans are generally most comfortable with people of the same social status; they place little emphasis on social class.

Friendship: Compared with Americans, Chinese are more likely to have a small number of lifelong friends who are deeply attached to each other and willing to provide each other with any form of help. Americans may have many "friends" and acquaintances that change over time and have limited commitments to each other.

Obligations Among Chinese, relationships with others usually mean obligations to each other. In contrast, Americans tend to shy away from interdependent relationships and situations that may result in long-term obligations.

Task orientation and relationship orientation: Chinese people focus on relationship orientation. Maintaining harmonious relationships is more important than completing tasks. In contrast, Americans focus on task orientation. Getting the job done is often more important than the relationship.

Harmony and “facts”: Chinese people are often taught to avoid direct conflict, public criticism, and controversial topics. They want to maintain harmony among the people around them and save "face" for others. In contrast, Americans are generally willing to confront problems directly, offer criticism, discuss controversial issues, and stand by what they believe to be "facts." They don't care about "face".

The role of laws, rules and regulations: When it comes to communication, Chinese people generally trust interpersonal relationships more than written rules and procedures. Americans generally believe that written rules apply to everyone and can produce fair and reasonable procedures and decisions.

Time concept: Chinese people are more nostalgic and pay more attention to the future. Americans are generally less interested in the past than in the present.

Assigned vs. Acquired Identity: In Chinese tradition, an individual's position in society was largely based on inherited characteristics such as age, gender, and family, but this is changing. For most Americans, personal status is based primarily on one's achievements, including educational attainment and career success.

This article is the first in my series of "Chinese Culture Talks". I hope to combine simple truths with practical issues, so that we can understand what the value of Chinese culture is. A grand view shows little talent and little learning; the words of a family cannot be respected.

Today we first talk about what culture is. Then a brief comparison of Chinese and American culture will be made to see the huge impact of culture on a society.

What is Culture?

To put it simply, culture is those rules and understandings from the elders that you don’t know the reasons for but are still willing to accept. In practice, most people can realize the benefits they bring, or believe they can bring benefits. The benefits have made these rules and understandings become the choices of most people in the contemporary era, and now they constitute the main content of culture. However, if this rule or understanding has been completely proved to be unfeasible by objective practice, it will not persist. This is also the renewal ability of culture. Therefore, culture is mainly those rules and understandings (belonging to the level of values ??and philosophy) that are difficult to give a conclusion, and has four characteristics: subjectivity, continuity, groupness, and usefulness.

For example, when it comes to the Spring Festival, everyone thinks that they should celebrate the Spring Festival, and they are used to it. It is difficult to say why everyone must celebrate the Spring Festival, but they can all point out some benefits, so it is natural. Continue. But it is this natural inertia that has powerful social power, unless society undergoes drastic changes or is completely eroded and oppressed by foreign culture. The latter process has happened to Chinese traditional culture more than once, but it has all been conquered by the rationality and strong cohesion of Chinese culture itself. Two characteristics of Chinese culture are proposed here, rationality and cohesion.

The continuity of culture does not mean losing its rationality. In fact, although the debate on cultural rationality involves the participation of all people, the answers are often given by the recognized social elite. However, the debate on social values ??requires long-term and large-scale social practice, so its changes are slow and repeated. It is often difficult for the elites of an era to give answers to many issues. Even rules that can be deduced through a few simple principles require long-term practice to confirm, and this is the depth of Chinese culture.

Confucian culture has not only been questioned today, but has been refuted from the first day of its birth. There have always been people in history who have questioned and even made harsh criticisms. However, Confucianism has become the final choice because it is the choice of society and has been criticized. Verified by a lot of practice.

Interpretation of Chinese and American Culture

I have a simple description of the social structures of China and the United States.

US stays on rules. (The United States is built on rules)

China stays on culture. (China is built on culture)

The United States was the first to start practicing A country that has turned all the achievements of civilization into specific written provisions, so it now has the most complete legal system, policy system, public procedures, etc., and enjoys personal freedom on top of the rules, or the rules are embodied in the relationship between personal freedom compromise. When rules are turned into articles, everything can be turned into order. If the rules meet the needs of social production and life, then higher execution efficiency will naturally occur. American society relies heavily on good written regulations.

But rules only reflect things at the institutional level, and values ??are the cornerstone of promoting the establishment of systems. American values ??include two aspects. On the one hand, they come from the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity during the French Revolution; on the other hand, they are the transplantation of traditional Western Christian culture. The United States is a system of alliances that come and go freely, and their strength often comes from loose and free creation.

China does not have mature systems, laws, policies and other written and fixed rules. However, Chinese society as a whole is still functioning well and developing rapidly, and it has a strong power of self-reflection. This is because China has a strong and vibrant society. culture. Culture can constrain everyone's behavior at all times and promote social cooperation. This culture comes from the accumulation of history and the collision of wisdom.

The structure of Chinese society still follows this principle, and values ??are the cornerstone of promoting the establishment of the system. The complexity and diversity of China's social development make it far more culturally and intellectually profound than that of the United States. However, the institutional foundation for China's development was often undermined by monarchs and foreigners in turn. China's mature cultural wisdom is always in a struggle with the autocratic system and the barbaric domestication of foreign nations. In the enlightened period of Chinese history, the achievements of culture were often able to be identified as some good rules, but then they were easily destroyed under the monarchy system. The literati government and emerging ideas that began in the Song Dynasty were quickly destroyed by foreign invasions, resulting in ideological shackles for thousands of years.

Culture is irreplaceable in a society. Because the social development process cannot be interrupted and then designed and constructed. Social development is a process of natural evolution that cannot be terminated and has no choice. How China can progress is to identify traditions that are correct and suitable for itself, elevate them from culture to rules, and at the same time use its own wisdom to gain new knowledge from practice, and make them, together with traditions, become the foundation of society. basic system.

Comparison of Chinese and American Culture

Historically, the United States is not a country in the traditional sense, but an emerging federation of interests, and due to its short history, it is still in the process of development. The boom-and-bust cycle of society has not been fully reflected in the United States. Therefore, there are many incomparable differences when comparing it with traditional countries. Only when it forms some inherent cultural attributes that are difficult to change can it be considered a mature country.

Comparison at the cultural level

According to the understanding of culture, what the United States can inherit mainly comes from the ideological achievements of the French Revolution and traditional Western Christian teachings. God has become the unique Lord of western civilization, although no one has ever seen it. Jesus was just a lesson plan or tool used to promote this idea. What are God's civilized principles? They are darkness, deception, plunder, and the law of the jungle. The so-called charity and morality are only used to forgive evil people and evil deeds. The occasional light is brought by God and not by people. It can be seen from this that although they inherited the outstanding achievements of the French Revolution, they did not break away from the framework of traditional Western civilization. From the actions of Bush, who claims to be a traditional American, we can see the traditional values ??he upholds. Bush can be said to be the president who is farthest from the freedom, equality, and fraternity proposed by the French Revolution in modern times. Therefore, he is more able to Fully embodying the other side of traditional American values.

Chinese culture is the result of thousands of years of changes and vicissitudes. It contains not only some values ??and principles, but also a lot of unique wisdom. This kind of cultural accumulation is the result of the struggle between different schools of thought in the diversified (rather than unified) Chinese history, and has been proven by long-term practice. We often say that history always repeats itself, which means that most of the current phenomena have happened in Chinese history. Therefore, it is extremely persuasive to the Chinese people themselves and extremely adaptable to Chinese society.

The rationality and cohesion of Chinese culture are the core. If Confucianism dates back to Confucius (actually earlier, it gradually emerged from multi-tribal communities and agricultural production), it has also experienced many changes and ideological battles. The reason why it can survive well is It is because of his extremely strong rationality. When Confucius summed up the wisdom of his predecessors, the most important choice was "The Master does not speak of strange powers but confuses the gods."

The core of Confucius' discussion of the construction of social systems is "harmony". At the social system level, it emphasizes giving up war, living together in a civilized manner, and relying on theory to resolve disputes. For individuals, Confucius emphasized "benevolence" and "learning", and used "benevolence" to build a harmonious and reasonable environment, and "learning" to improve one's own understanding, avoid fighting for meaningless wrong goals, and be able to participate in in the process of theory. Wisdom is the result of learning, faith is the state of getting along, courage is the courage of individuals to make progress, and righteousness is the implementation of personal responsibilities to the public. Etiquette is nothing but rules based on these establishments that are reasonable and need to be followed together. It is an expression of thought and wisdom. If you look at Confucius or Confucian culture and only know "benevolence" and "propriety", you will fall into the embarrassing situation of knowing it but not knowing why.

China’s wisdom comes from the gifts of the natural environment and the humanistic environment. China's natural environment is the only continent in the world that is relatively independent and can continuously absorb new forces. Geographically speaking, it is surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on one side. Most of the surrounding areas are barren land. However, the Central Plains region enjoys the best geographical location, so it naturally forms a centripetal force towards the center. From a climatic perspective, China's temperate climate is the most suitable for human habitation and development, and it fully demonstrates the law of repeated climate cycles, reflecting the relatively consistent climate environment across the continent, which makes it easy for various tribes to develop understandings of nature and society. *** knowledge, conducive to integration and migration. During the integration, the worship of ghosts and gods of different tribes is no longer important and cannot survive. It is replaced by ancestor worship, cultural worship, and wisdom worship. These are the roots of Chinese culture.

Mainland China has the unique conditions of being the ultimate cultural base that embraces all rivers and rivers. This makes Chinese culture relatively independent and able to absorb cultural nutrients from other ethnic groups, focusing on integrity, stability, harmony and longevity. Summed up as open and independent, absorbing and noble characteristics. The social changes in mainland China are a microcosm of the complete changes in world operation. Many of the so-called international diplomatic disputes today can be seen as similar to the disputes between the various princes within China at that time. With the above conditions, it is not surprising that the thought of "Yi" emerged. Taking "Yi" as the origin and destination of wisdom well embodies the philosophical view of Chinese culture.

Cultural Differences between China and the United States

China and the United States have some deep-rooted cultural and social differences. Here are some examples of what I have observed. The author would like to emphasize here that these views are general, and of course there are still individual exceptions.

1. Individualism

Americans highly value individualism, while Eastern societies (including the Chinese, of course) emphasize family and class hierarchy. This is a very important and influential distinction. There are many examples of Americans advocating personal characteristics, and parents are less likely to intervene in the development of their children.

2. Right to privacy

Americans usually respect other people’s privacy. Even close friends rarely ask other people too "personal" questions, such as age, salary and marital status. You should also talk less about third parties. Uninvited visitors (including parents) are absolutely unwelcome.

3. Informality

Americans are relatively casual in terms of clothing and entertainment. The most important thing is that communication between people is relatively informal, even if the two parties are very different in age or status. There are countless examples of this. For example, it can be seen that many students directly address professors and juniors to the elderly by first name. This kind of informal behavior of "crossing generations" and "crossing status" is regarded as disrespectful behavior in the eyes of many Asians.

4. Openness and directness

Americans are quite open and direct, especially in professional discussions, and often argue with different opinions (note: it is an argument, not a slap on the table) , a quarrel involving throwing a microphone). On the contrary, Easterners often do not conflict directly, but communicate tactfully through a third party with a higher status.

5. Independence

Americans generally do not like to rely on others, and may not even be willing to accept help from their parents. Parents also encourage their children to leave home early and live independently. develop. Our country's youth develop slowly in this regard. For international students, it is important to note that the supervisor attaches great importance to the ability of graduate students to conduct independent research. For international students who are not good at English, if you are rejected when you borrow notes from Americans, it does not necessarily mean that they hate you. It is most likely that they are comparing themselves to others and think that you should be independent.

6. Competitiveness

The development of American society relies on competition as a driving force. "Work hard, play hard" is the style of most people. They both like to overwhelm their opponents in verbal arguments. This style of "getting the last word in" is certainly a sign of competitiveness. Their competitive and challenging spirit also shows up in sports competitions, even when they so-called "playing for fun" they are quite serious. Americans are generally very fanatical about a team and often use this to vent their emotions. For example, during school team games, campus police often check the spectators entering the venue to prevent them from bringing alcohol into the venue. During football matches, the audience is noisy and often throws things.

Some of the entertainment performances are also a bit inexplicable. For example, there is a trick where a female cheerleader is thrown from the bottom of the auditorium, and people from level to level throw her up again, until she is thrown down from the top again; occasionally, there are injuries caused by mistakes. things happen. The author can be considered a fan, but I watch TV at home so as not to suffer the pain at the scene. And be sure to time it accurately, and avoid walking on the road when the game is over, because fans are happy when they win (if you see drivers honking their horns, you know you won without listening to the report), and depressed when they lose. Anger, both results are crazy. Some hot-blooded young men often do strange things. One thing that needs to be emphasized is that unless they are venting, the vast majority of Americans are very well-behaved and do not harass others.

7. Etiquette in public situations

Americans usually respect the peace of others. Needless to say, in the opera house, you can also enjoy it in silence even in the theater. The conversation during the meal in the restaurant was also very low-pitched, which was very different from the noisy fist-fighting and drinking-fighting in China. Everyone is very orderly when queuing, queue jumping is not accepted, and crowding into the bus is definitely rare. Drivers usually abide by traffic rules, such as not running red lights late at night when no one is around, respecting pedestrians, and letting passers-by cross the road first. International students in the United States from countries that are less likely to obey traffic rules should be especially careful.

8. Friends Mode

The definition of friends in American language is relatively broad and differentiated; for example, friends at work, friends who play ball, friends at school, and friends who drink. friends and so on. In addition, the United States has a vast territory and high population mobility, and friends rarely reveal personal matters to each other, so friendships are relatively "warm water". Friendship among Chinese people is usually like "a single move affects the whole body." They try to avoid meeting each other if they don't agree with each other, and they tend to have high ups and downs. It is quite common for Chinese friends to borrow money from each other, but it is rare for Americans to borrow money from friends.

9. How to use money

Chinese people usually make more conservative budgets, while American budgets are closer to the "limit" and tend to consume more than the budget ( It also has something to do with the heavy use of credit cards in American society). Americans are very willing to buy things, especially houses and cars, and are more "Jewish" when it comes to eating and drinking, especially entertaining guests; while the Chinese are more willing to spend money on entertaining guests.

10. Worldview

Perhaps because the United States has been prosperous for many years and its educational focus is still biased in some aspects, most Americans are "home-centered" and have a very poor understanding of other countries. shallow. Americans' ignorance of world geography is something that saddens the National Geographic Society. There is a joke circulating in the United States: A resident of a certain northeastern state wrote to the state government to ask about the situation in New Mexico. The reply was actually: We are not familiar with the situation in other countries and have no comment.

Initial understanding of the comparison between Chinese and American cultures

I recently met an American. Talked about a lot of things. I suddenly became very interested in America. Regarding education, in the United States, you must go to school before the age of 16. It's all free, so you can't go if you don't want to go. But China's nine-year compulsory education still requires money, and there is no way to do it due to national conditions. Education in the United States is funded as part of taxes. They never knew that there was such a thing as Hope School, and it was unimaginable that donations were needed to go to school. Regarding the environment, in China, they feel like they can't breathe, smell of smoke, and can't run. Although we already felt much cleaner on the road than before, they felt why there was garbage everywhere, sigh. I feel like we don’t pay attention to the public. There are also smoking in public factories and so on. Regarding freedom, they will feel that many websites will be blocked, and many American websites cannot be accessed. They have a casual view on many things because they have no history, only 300 years, while we are influenced by long-term traditions. Regarding marriage, in the United States, one out of three marriages is divorced, so step father or mather is very normal. But in China, they wonder why some people want to divorce, and some people would advise them not to divorce. They pay more attention to privacy. There are no more than two people in a dormitory. If you don't feel very uncomfortable, there are still not many people. They won't have two people who want to open a room and have to go out. They are all in their own dormitories, and everyone understands. We still need to find a student hotel haha. As for the changes after coming to China, people in the United States were always told that China was the enemy, saying that China was developing very fast and would soon catch up with the United States. But after coming to China, they felt that there was still a big gap. It's not the same type of thing. How can we put it in the past and say whether we can catch up. Also, China is very traditional, and China is unfair to women. These are all human rights issues. But when I came here, I felt that this was not the case. It was still much more open than I thought, and men and women were also very equal. Regarding racial discrimination, racial discrimination does exist in the United States. Many people just can't stand people of other skin colors. There are also parties that only white people are allowed to attend. Regarding family, as long as many people in the United States don't have children, they don't get married and just live together, because they know they will get divorced. Anyway, if they don't have children, it's easier. They find it hard to imagine that we need to think about our parents.

Because they have been kicked out of their homes since they were 18 years old, they will not care about their parents at all when their parents are old. So when I said what I was going to do for my parents, they thought it was weird. As for joking, they really joke about everything. When men and women are together, they cancel other people's masturbation, imitate the masturbation of the opposite sex, and talk about their favorite sex positions. They are only 20 years old. There is such a difference from us. The average first time age is 18 or 19 years old. Regarding entertainment, we mostly stay in the dormitory on weekends, and they will definitely go to the bar or club. And so on, etc. In short, there are differences in many aspects, but the essence lies in history. I still prefer their freedom and openness of ideas. I will definitely go to the United States once to see a lot. When she saw Miami Beach in transporter2, she said that her home was right on the beach in Florida and it was so beautiful. I also have personal experience. Many of them were born outside the United States. I even met one who lived in several places with me when he was a child, but we all got along well with each other and there was no sense of any strangeness. It is really a country of immigrants

Comparison list of Chinese and American cultures

Published time: 2006-4-23 12:56 Author: Bai Ding Source: Luohe Information Port·Blue Boiling Space

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(United States) (China)

"My", "Your" "Our", "Yours"

Enjoy Service Request Approval

Uniform Hate Uniform Worship

Things in their place and people in their place

The recipient's address is at the bottom of the envelope and the recipient's address is at the top of the envelope< /p>

One floor above ground floor

Black funeral, white funeral

On the map, France is the center of the world. On the map, China is the center of the world

"Asians all look the same" "Europeans all look the same"

"I" (gesturing to the chest) "I" (gesturing to the nose)

Parisian Look down on people from other provinces, Beijingers look down on outsiders

Get tanned and whitened

Raise your hand to call a taxi and raise your arm to call a taxi

Walking on a street full of shit Eat dog meat

Knives and forks, bread, chopsticks and rice

Send flowers to the grave Send food to the grave

Sweet and salty breakfast

Quiet and dark restaurant Noisy and bright restaurant

"Hello, how are you walking?" "Hello, have you eaten?"

Shower frequently and wash clothes frequently< /p>

Let others lose face and save your own face

Bragger about the value of the gift and belittle the value of the gift

Open the gift in front of the guest and yell at the guest to leave Then quietly look at the gifts

Wear a T-shirt to travel and a suit to travel

"Happy New Year" "Congratulations on getting rich"

Walking the dog and walking the bird

Take pictures of scenery and people

Sitting on the ground and squatting on the ground

Cars whistle to blame others Cars whistle to warn others

Women smoke Fashionable Men's Smoking Fashion

Comparison of Chinese and American Cultures

China

Just use your mouth to say nice things. . . (False)

Crosstalk: A game of flattery

Sketch: Huyo’s trick

Martial Arts: Hanging on a wire and flying around, but actually no effort is required Yes, anyone can imitate it and memorize the lines to their advantage.

United States

Performance art (requiring action) plus competitive philosophy (true)

Football: a game of strong men

Ice Hockey: Experience speed and passion

Basketball: Skills and coordination, speed and confrontation

Baseball: A game for smart people

Action movies: All real kung fu, Are you strong enough, bro? Have you ever practiced in the gym? They have been practicing since childhood, why do you think it is unreal? Because you can't imitate it.

UFC: Real-person unlimited fighting, who has the strongest spirit and will? Who is the real hero, first signs the certificate of life and death. The most dangerous and real fighting game on earth, with almost every KO and injuries.

American Wrestling: It is also a game for strong men.

So the men in this world who love competition and build their bodies and are competitive are more real.

Chinese people need to exercise, strengthen themselves, make themselves brave and confident. The Chinese need to strive for first place, not friendship first and competition second. This is the true national spirit. Chinese people need to find goals, know themselves and pursue their ideals. to transform society. Rather than being a slave for the sake of survival.

And those men who like to recite poetry are fake because they always compare ancient times with modern times. In fact, we should study modern studies rather than ancient literature.

Hope these are helpful to you!