1读《文化碰撞——中国北美人际交往误解剖析》_读中国文化概论

1读《文化碰撞——中国北美人际交往误解剖析》由刀豆文库小编整理，希望给你工作、学习、生活带来方便，猜你可能喜欢“读中国文化概论”。

读《文化碰撞——中国北美人际交往误解剖析》

Cultures Contrast: Mis-cummnication and Mis-understanding

between Chinese and North Americans

It is by chance that I saw the book Cultures Contrast: Mis-cummnication and Mis-understanding between Chinese and North Americans in Profeor Zhu’s cla and ask for it to have a copy.It is a good book to understand the cultural contrasts between people from China and North America.In this new century, culture has becomes a hot topic and a major tool to analyze and sovle the problems of various fields.With the growing awarene of the significance of culture, how to get the knowledge of culture has become the major concern.For the best way of having something remembered is to arouse the interest, the author of the book deisigns the content by catagries of

Communication, Hispitality, Dining and Fooways, Romance and Sexuality, Pricacy and Queing, and Busine and Contractual Relationship, each have short story go with it and followed by both Chinese perspective and North American perspective, which made it easy to understand the cultural contrasts and its cultural implications.Besides, the titles of the cases are also of great fun, eg.Silence is Golden…and Confusing is about American profeor’s confusing about his Chinese students’ not asking qusetions after the lecture.In America, “for a profeor, being asked questions by students is a sign that they interested, that they paid attention to the lecture, and want to learn more.” But he doesn’t know that in China, “a student questioning the

profeor might be looked upon as the equicalent of challenging the authority of the

lecturer.”Other interesting topics are “Does the thought really count?” “Not so close, please.”etc.Nest, I want to show you a typical example, which is all real personal experience Telephone Courtesy

Kathy and David, a couple from the US, signed a one-year contract to work in China.Both were extroverted and soon made some Chinese friends.Before long, people started calling them at home.David was sometimes away on busine trips for a few days, and if someone looked for him, Kathy often would find the conversation awkward.“Where did he go?” The caller typically would ask.“Can I pa on any meage?” Kathy asked politely, trying to avoid the question.“Is he out of town?” The caller was usually very persistent.“Yes, can I help you in any way?” Kathy tried to be polite, but she could not help feeling uncomfortable.When someone calls a person who is home, “Where is he” or” Where did he go” are natural questions.The caller may not necearily be interested in finding out exactly where the person is, the question are asked simply as a way to carry on the phone conversation before hanging up.The notion that information one’s daily actions

should be private and not generally shared with just anyone is still an alien notion to many Chinese.Questions about where he went or if he is out of town are not just seen as rude, they are threatening.Americans live in a society where violence is too common.A woman would never admit to a stranger on the phone that her husband is out of town for several days.Such an admiion could make her vulnerable to an attack.A person’s movements and schedule, especially at home, are considered private and most Americans would never share that information with an unknown caller.Questions on details about someone’s personal movements are simply not something another person, especially an apparent stranger, is entitled to ask.If the caller had to speak with David before a certain date or time, that person could say by stating

something like, “Yes, I’d like to leave a meage,” and could indicate the date before which he needs to talk with David.These is only one example to give a brief contrast of different countries.We know that there is no saying of good or bad cultures.The key point is from what view to treat it.People of different cultures must have different attitudes, unavoidably with much one-sidedne.Therefore, to avert unneceary misunderstanding, we should learn not only our own cultures, but also more other country’s cultures.In such circumstances, people would freely communicate with fewer obstacles.We are fully aware that culture is a very big concept.Even the same country frequently fails to understand each other, let alone people from different countries.Take Chinese people and Americans for example.Much of the misunderstanding between them in ordinary life comes from a lake of awarene about the other’s traditions.Using one’s values to judge someone from another culture is bound to

result in miscommunication even though both parties are well intended.Attempting to understand another person through the perspective of that person’s own culture is an important step towards better relationship.As well, learning about other cultures can be intrinsically rewarding and fascinating, helping us to appreciate the richne and depth of the human experiences.