Last week I found an article “cultural awareness” when doing online practice about rhetoric, which aroused my thinking
about difference between cultures. In that article, the author talked about the
meaning of cultural awareness, the reasons that people have cultural awareness
and how to avoid misunderstanding between different cultures. The author gave a
simple example of the different topics are talked when having lunch between
Italians and Americans: Italians utilize the lunch time to relax while
Americans save the time for talking about their deals.
 |
Cultural Differences?
Provided by Zixun |
After I came here, many friends in China asked me about the life
in Canada: are you used to the western food there? Do you eat cheese? Is there
any Chinese restaurant there? Even though Canada is multicultural and many
immigrants come here from a lot of different countries, there are still various
differences between western culture and Chinese culture. Here I listed several
interesting ones in my eyes:
1. In the Restaurants: when you go to the Chinese restaurants, do you
feel that’s too noisy? People around tables just talk and laugh loudly. If you
think those people’s actions are rude and impolite, you really misunderstand
them. In the traditional Chinese restaurants, these dynamic situations are pretty
common. Of course, people there could enjoy themselves with friends and
families without repression, and the good business will also attract more
customers passing by. In contrast, I feel the western restaurants are a little
bit repressing where I need to talk in a very low volume and “act as a lady”. For
example, the first time when I went to KEG steak restaurant with my boyfriend,
even though I was so excited, I was trying to calm myself down and pretending
to be a shy girl sitting in romantic dim lights.
2.
About modesty. People have different ways to deal with other’s
compliment. In the West, if somebody tells you that you are so beautiful today,
you will response like “thank you”. However, in China, if you response like
that, they will feel you are so arrogant and conceited. As a result, we always
praise each other, even though that’s not the word from their hearts!
3.
Ordering food. Here in Canada, when friends get together to
have a dinner in the restaurant, people order their own portions including everything
like entrees, desserts and drinks. At first I was not used to it because we got
used to order dishes together, make a menu and share the food with each other.
4.
Paying bills. It was so surprising when I heard some couples
paying separate bills when dinner was done. In contrast, in China, “gentlemen”
always pay all the bills especially after getting married. This is one of the
most “attractive” parts for girls in Chinese cultural.
5.
Greeting: “How are
you?” When I was taking ESL, my instructor insisted asking us “how are you”
every day. I felt it was so boring to answer the same questions every morning, and
one of the reasons was that I had tried all ways to response and after that I needed
to repeat the words I used before. When I had an impulse to tell her that I was
always good, I thought about my own culture: why did people ask others if they
had eaten or not. Exactly, it’s just a way to express your concerns.
After
showing you my experiences between different cultures, I want to share a series of cartoons drawn by a German artist with you. They show us the differences by
comparing different ways in daily lives (Blue-Germany; Red-China). Hope you enjoy them!
 |
| 1. Expressing opinions |
 |
| 2. Lifestyle |
 |
| 3. Punctuality |
 |
| 4. Interpersonal Relationship |
 |
| 5. The way to express anger |
 |
| 6. Lining up |
 |
| 7. Ego |
 |
| 8. Sunday View |
 |
| 9. Gathering |
 |
| 10. In the restaurants |
 |
| 11. Drinks when having a stomachache |
 |
| 12. Travelling |
 |
| 13. Standards of Beauty |
 |
| 14. Approach to problems |
 |
| 15. Three meals a day |
 |
| 16. Transportation |
 |
| 17. Later life |
 |
| 18. Bath time |
 |
| 19. Mood and weather |
 |
| 20. Leadership |
 |
| 21. Fashion |
 |
| 22. Kids |
 |
| 23. New stuff |
 |
| 24. Images of each other |
Wow I really like the drawings you put in your blog. I am a very visual learner so it really helped get your point across on how we perceive different cultures in different ways and how different cultures perceive different things. They were really enjoyable to look through and figure out the differences. I liked to compare them with my own culture and figure out which one was more similar to mine; which I would have to say being Canadian is much more similar to the German perspective on things.
ReplyDelete