Question

急求中英文化差异的原因

Answer 1

What are the major differences between chinese and western culture?

I'll list down a few differences:

West:

1. Western culture is based on individualism rather than on mass (collectivism). For instance, in the US, you always talk about individual rights, instead of placing the whole society above your own self. This is clearly different in China where a country, society or family are placed above your own self.

2. Western culture is adventurous and exploration based. Westerners like to discover new things, invention and expand outwards. For instance, bungee jumping is considered adventurous and common in western culture, but you will probably find no-one doing such a thing in China.

3. Western culture is based on science, which attempts to resolve people and nature's relationship.

4. West uses law to resolve people and people's relationship. You can never find 'law' well-established in China. For 2000 years, China is a land that's based on human relationship rather than law.

5. West uses 'god' and religion to resolve human and spiritualism relationship. In case of problems with your own self, you just pray to god.

6. A culture that expands and develop outwards.
Chinese Culture:

1. A culture based on masses (collectivism). People placed country and family above your own self.

2. A culture that is based on humanism and people

3. To resolve the relationship betwen man and nature, the chinese attempts to fuse the human and 'heaven' as one. (天人和一)

4. To resolve people and people's relationship, chinese uses ethics and tolerance (中恕之道)

5. To resolve human and spiritualism, chinese emphasizes internal cultivation (修身养性)

6. A focus on balance and mean. By 'mean', it means 'middle way'. You don't go into extremism. Peace is always honoured.

7. Pay homage to heaven and earth, as well as bearing a remembrance to the homeland. (敬仰天地,思乡怀土) This was accorded to the fact that chinese had been a farming civilization and therefore will be more prone to remember their land.

8. A culture that expands internally rather than outwards.
Some of the disadvantage of old chinese culture:

1. Debase women and chauvanistic

2. An over-emphasis on past history instead of present (lacks pragmatism)
Can you list some more differences? Any comments and contributions are appreciated.

Hey General, guess you've highlighted all the major differences. Minor ones, I have to think about it.

And I must say I am surprised you didn't note the fact that Westerners can be incredibly, crassly ignorant about the world around them, and be arrogant and overbearing about that to boot. I don't believe it is a generalisation when I say that alot of the corporate West's interest in the East is selfish, exploitative, and self-serving.