英文 刮痧中的中西方文化差异

Scraping Therapy The film “Scraping Therapy” reflects the differences of value and culture views between westerners and Chinese. China society is influenced by Confucianism for thousands years. Confucianism is known as paying regard to human relationship and ethic. But in Western culture, people emphasize more on individualism, independence and equality. So conflicts in culture and value are unavoidable. These conflicts have shown in the movie. Conflict 1: Individualism and collectivism Individualism emphasizes individual goals and independence, but collectivism advocates the inseparable relationship and dependence between person and person. China is a collectivism country, but America is an individualism country. In movie, actually the grandfather did Scraping Therapy to Dennis. But in the court, Datong admitted it without hesitation. This reflects the inseparable relationship and dependence in a family. Bonds between two family members are strong. When a family member is in need, the other will give him a hand by nature and sometimes even the help is illegal or against conscience. Those sacrifices will be made to help friends as well. Now in China society, people who are in same relationship networks still benefit from each other. There is another example explaining this character of a Chinese. In the court, Quinlan witnessed that Datong beat his son. Datong was angry and accused Quinlan that he had been treated Quinlan as his friend but Quinlan betrayed him in the court. As an American, Quinlan considered what he had done was totally correct and Datong was a friend of him. Americans always make a distinction between public affairs and personal affairs. They are just about principle issues. This reflects a different individualism value of friendship. Conflict 2: Chinese’s emotion and American law In movie, Datong brought Dennis off the welfare horse to airport because he wanted to make his father to have one last look at grandson before leaving America. On Christmas day, Datong Climbed water pipe to meet his family at the risk of his life. Every Chinese will be moved by the kinships in Datong’s family. But, all these are illegal in American law. This is against Chinese’s emotion. Chinese pay more attention to the emotion everywhere even in the law. But American attaches importance to the fact especially in the law. Their law involves so many areas and some of them are against the understanding of a Chinese. In China, parents consider children as parts of their own. Sometimes, they beat and scold their children for better education. But in America, parents are just children’s guardian and they have no right to beat and scold their children especially for minors. To protect minors, American passed a series of law. On account of that, in this movie, Dennis had been separated from his parents because he was left alone home and had scar in his back. Conflict 3: The problem of “Face” In movie, Datong beat his son because he wanted to give his friend Quinlan Face. That made Quinlan confused. In Chinese culture, people respect the elder and there’s a distinct line between different classes. American pays more attention to independence, individuality, equality, mutual respect and understanding. As I have mentioned, China is a collectivist country and people benefit from each other. People live in an invisible relationship network and are inequality in this network. People are unwilling to offend others especially the people from upper classes. Resulting from it, it forces people speak in a gentle way with high context language to live together peacefully and harmoniously. That’s the reason why people sacrifice their dignity and even conscience to maintain their and others’ Face. In this movie, Datong beating his son is the best example. Westerners also value face. But in interpersonal communication, they are less complicated than Chinese. They make a distinction between public affairs and personal affairs and are just about principle issues. People from different cultures often have conflicts. People want to solve those problems to live harmoniously. That’s why we study this course.