Specific Traits of Chinese Culture - Case Study Example

A Study of the Chinese Culture This paper explores the different cultures in the world specifically the Chinese culture. It expounds on how the Chinese culture influences people and the positive effects it has on them. It will also include a small research which I did personally during a wedding ceremony, which I was invited by my friend Chad Lee who belongs to the Chinese culture. Attending this function helped me understand the Chinese culture since the majority of the people who attended were of Chinese origin. Having attended other weddings of the American culture I was able to compare and contrast the American and Chinese cultures. A Study of the Chinese Culture This paper will study the Chinese culture. Chinese people are people who have their origins in China. The paper will focus on the Chinese way of life in regard to their food, architecture, arts, values, religion, tradition, music, dance and their food. The paper will follow a clear plan by first explaining the Chinese culture and then explaining the methods used in acquiring data and information. It will later describe the setting of the Chinese culture where it will explore the geographical and social issues that have influenced the culture. It will later study the characteristics of the Chinese culture by explaining their language. The paper will finally compare and contrast the Chinese culture and my American culture. Chad lee is my best friend who lives in San Francisco but was born in China in 1984. After six years, his entire family migrated to the United States of America and settled in San Francisco where they live up to date. I decided to use Chad’s family to understand more about the Chinese culture since most of his family members can understand English. His sister Wung Lee was getting married in a traditional Chinese marriage, which I took as an opportunity to learn more about their culture. I started to prepare my research by asking for permission from Chad to collect data by interviewing his relatives during the wedding, which he agreed to after confirming with his father. In preparation for the interviews, I serviced my equipment like a camcorder and prepared questionnaire forms which I would give to my informants. I prepared a total of fifteen questionnaire forms which would be divided in the following way; five forms were to be given to the elderly (those who had attained the age of sixty), five were to be given to relatives who were between the age of thirty and fifty and the remaining five were to be given to young adults aged between eighteen and twenty nine. Before attending the wedding to do my research, I decided to study the Chinese culture in-depth. Here, I learned that there were very many physical and social factors that influenced the culture and the way of life of the Chinese people. For example, the male to female population ratio has greatly influenced most of the Chinese practices. Social structures in the culture are mainly based on gender and other demographic factors. China is geographically well placed for farming and livestock keeping. This resulted in the Chinese culture adopting agriculture as a way of life. According to Gulilain (2009), like any other culture, the Chinese culture is based on a number of major domains. One major characteristic of the Chinese culture is agriculture being the economic foundation of the people. Life in the Chinese culture is based on agriculture. People grow their own food; only trading the surplus. Hence the Chinese are concerned with the environment a lot, since it is their basic source of life. Another major characteristic of the Chinese culture is that it is based on contentment and simplicity. According to Gulilain (2008), this is a factor based on the Taoism philosophy, which states that nature is simple so human life should also be simple. Although the use of modern technology like auto mobiles is supposed to simplify human life, Chinese cultural norm states that technology causes anxiety and tension. For example, cars require insurance which is normally a complication for many people Another basic factor in the Chinese culture is the natural way of life. This is directly adapted from agriculture as the main economic activity. Farmers work in the open by using nature to go about their economic way of life. For example, many Chinese people living in America have the ability to buy cars but do not. This is because they view walking as a natural way of life which is simple and viewed to be stress free. Despite modernization, the natural way of life is deeply rooted among the Chinese people. Humanism is another basic factor in which the Chinese culture is based on. This is where, instead of worshiping supernatural beings, the Chinese worship their ancestors. They live their life based on the way their ancestors lived. This shows that the Chinese believe that the human race is everything and that life should be preserved since it is very important. Chinese culture is also based on mutual dependence and family relations. The family is the essential social unit in the Chinese culture. According to Gulilain (2008), there are five basic social relations. They include the husband-wife relationship, father-son relationship, friend-friend relationship, elder sibling-younger sibling relationship and finally sovereign-subject relationship. Among these five relationships, the three most important relationships are the elder sibling-younger sibling, father-son and husband-wife relationships. As we can see, the relationship between family members is the fundamental basis of all relationships. In the wedding, I got see how these basic domains influence Chinese culture. For example, family ties were illustrated when I noticed that decisions concerning the wedding were left to the groom’s and bridegroom’s father, who were the heads of their respective families. For example, after inquiring from elders, I realized that the bride price was set by the bride’s father who had asked for ten thousand dollars, since gifts presented as bride price were not available in America. I also took note that despite Lee’s family members being financially stable, there were very few cars parked outside the weddings venue. In fact, almost all the cars parked belonged to invited people who were not of Chinese origin. I realized that this was due to a domain where Chinese culture is based on a naturalistic way of life. Throughout the wedding I was able to catch Chinese words which were commonly used which I later understood with Lee’s help. For example, they used the phrase "Dwor jyoh", which meant how long. This was rampantly used since time keeping is very important in Chinese culture. Phrases such as “Boo-yong sshyeah” and “Sshyeah-sshyeah” were also commonly used as people interacted throughout the wedding. They mean “you are welcome” and “thank you” respectively. These words were uses a lot because of the humanism domain of the Chinese culture where people respect each other a lot. While asking my informants questions about their culture, I noticed that they felt pride in their culture and were very open about it. They even insisted that I try their way of living, saying I would find life very enjoyable. After completing my research, I found the Chinese culture to be very interesting citing their very humble way of life. No wonder my friend Lee is always very calm and happy no matter how bad a situation. Compared to Chinese culture, my American culture lacks originality and pride. We Americans borrow traditions from other cultures like the Chinese. In my culture, people are very self-centered and only focus on what is good for them. For example, people will do anything to get money regardless of the negative effects to the environment. In my culture people are obsessed with technology and cannot do anything without it. For instance, almost everybody in my culture who has attained the driving age limit drive themselves to do simple things like attending parties. Most of them are barely able to meet the financial requirements of insurance. In my opinion, Americans have a lot to borrow from the Chinese culture which will help them in a lot of ways. Reference Guillain, C. (2008). China Focus: Heinemann: London. Read More