On Basic Values Between Chinese and British.doc

中英基本价值观的差异on basic values between chinese and britishcontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction.2ii. why i choose this topic. 3iii. the comparison of chinese values and british values.31. innately good vs. innately evil.32. oneness vs. dividedness between man and nature.53. past vs. future orientation.64. being-who you are vs. doing-what you are doing.75. group vs. individualism orientation.8iv. harmonious culture.8v. conclusion.10references.11 on basic values between chinese and britishon basic valuesbetween chinese and britishabstract: culture is an extremely complex concept and an enormous subject. but however complex, culture can roughly be divided into three categories: material culture, which refers to all the products of manufacture, institutional culture which refers to various systems and the theories that support them, such as social systems, religious systems, ritual systems, educational systems, kinship systems and language; and mental culture, which refers to peoples mentality and behaviors, their thought patterns, beliefs, conceptions of value, aesthetic tastes. and people who come from different cultural patterns are still pursuing a better understanding between each other. though misunderstanding happens sometimes, we cannot deny that people know each other better and better now compared to thousands of years ago especially in recent years as globalization became a realization but a choice. this article will discuss such a home truth in a more practical way so that misunderstanding would happen less and less since basic values are the most basic creed when communicating.key words: cross-cultural communication; comparison of basic values; harmonious culture摘 要: 文化是一个相当复杂的概念也是一个相当大的主体。但是尽管复杂，文化本身大致可以分为三个方面：物质文化，是所有物质生产的产物；意识文化，是支持物质生产的各种各样的体系，理论，例如社会系统，宗教系统，礼仪系统，教育系统，血缘关系和语言；精神文化，是指人的精神和行为，他们的思维方式，信念，价值观和审美观。同时来自不同的文化体系的人们仍孜孜不倦的追求以更好的了解彼此。尽管误解时有发生，但是我们不能否认与几千年前相比现在人们的交流正在加深，特别是最近以来随着全球化的实现，人们之间的了解正在加深。这篇文章将讨论的是一个老生常谈的话题跨文化交际，我将从一个更加实用的角度来探讨这个话题以减少误解的发生。所以我选择了基本价值观来讨论，因为是他们一直在指引着人们的行为。关键词：跨文化交际；基本价值观的比较；和谐文化i. introduction “values” are ideas about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, normal and abnormal, proper and improper. “assumptions” here are the postulates, about people, life, and the way things are. most people who grow up in a particular culture share certain values and assumptions. as people grow up, they learn certain values and assumptions, which will influence and formulate their way of life. these values and assumptions overlap and support each other. they fit together. a culture can be viewed as a collection of values and assumptions that go together to shape the way a group of people perceive and relate to the world around them. all communication is cultural no less than cross-cultural communication. our experts have spared no effort on it and the differences of basic values between chinese and british. so it is not surprising to find that the scopes of basic values in different books are not the same when comparing the basic values between cultures. someone says it can be analyzed from the following sides: individual freedom and self-reliance; equality of opportunity and competition; material wealth and hard work; goodness of humanity and improvement; time and efficiency. and in the book intercultural communication professor jia yuxin integrates all the cultural facts and divides basic values when we do cross cultural communication into 6 aspects, which are: the relationship between human and nature: oneness or dividedness between man and nature; human relationships; attitude towards change: the seeking of change or the seeking of stability; innately good or innately evil; past or future orientation; group or individualism orientationand here is comparison of chinese values and british values by linell davis:orientationchinese valuesbritish valueshuman naturebasically goodbasically evilrelationship to natureharmony with naturehumans control naturesense of timepast orientationfuture orientation activitybeing-who you aredoing-what you are doingsocial relationshipshierarchy individual however, to analyze the different values in my thesis is unrealistic and too general to be done, so my thesis will focus on some essential and basic values from 5 aspects, which are human nature, relationship to nature, sense of time, activity and social relationship since they speak louder than any other point.ii. why i choose this topicas the development of science and technology, we are proceeding into an information age. globalization is a reality but not a choice. more and more british people come to china for commercial or entertainment aims or something else, and chinese frequently visit britain. since there are so many differences between chinese and british, it is not unusual that misunderstanding would happen and embarrassment occurs. therefore it is necessary to know some differences between chinese and british so as to communicate well. however, there are so many differences between them because they have been living in different environments, they speak different kinds of languages and even their food, which is a necessity for life, is not the same. so what causes the differences? and can we find the roots making differences? and what are they? how do british differ from us? the way to address this question is to consider the values and assumptions that both chinese and british live by. in this article, cross-cultural communication will be outlined and demonstrated by aspects of innately good vs. innately evil, oneness vs. dividedness between man and nature, past vs. future orientation, being-who you are vs. doing-what you are doing and group vs. individualism orientation. each of them influences the course of communications, and can be responsible for conflict or the escalation of conflict when it leads to miscommunication or misinterpretation. the challenge is that even with all the good will in the world, miscommunication is likely to happen, especially when there are significant cultural differences between communicators. miscommunication may lead to, or aggravate, conflict that already exists. we make, whether it is clear to us or not, quite different interpretations of the world, our status in it, and our relationships with others. communication varies across cultures. a culturally-loaded approach to conflict means working over time to understand these and other ways and applying these understandings in order to enhance relationships across differences. even though miscommunication would happen, we cannot stop communicating with people of other cultures. and if we get some basic conception of the basic values of both chinese and british, cross-cultural communication would be a little easier for us. and that is the purpose of my writing.iii. the comparison of chinese values and british values1. innately good vs. innately eviltraditional chinese beliefs about human nature is that humans beings are born good which can date to our masters confucius or mencius about two thousand years ago. then what make people evil and even commit crimes. the answer is the society. all the children are believed to be born pure and nave, having no sense about the outside world. as they grow up and contact with the society, they become corrupt and their minds change. and it is the reason that our parents, teachers and other relatives or friends always caution us that to be careful when we are going outside. and it is the reason that chinese parents usually dont approve of having relationship in middle or high school and british parents allow their daughters or sons to go out with their boy or girlfriends as long as they come home at certain time. and that is why when chinese students write something about their parents, teachers and other relatives, they tend to idealize them. the british believe human beings are born evil. we can find its origin from the holy bible that adam and eve, ancestors of human beings by christianity, were driven out of the garden of eden because they ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. since then according to the practice of christianity, all human are born with original sin, which can be reflected in many literature and art works like paradise lost and paradise regained by john milton and scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorme. so in britain even the noblest figures have flaws. there is a saying like that: to err human; to forgive divine. we can see from the saying that human beings are certain to make some mistakes. only one kind of man would not err, the dead. for thousands of years, chinese are dominated by confucian culture, which believes people are encouraged to be good by others around them, and they should feel ashamed if they fail to live up to their expectations, therefore, some experts called it shame culture while the british are dominated by what so called guilt culture. shame is about the self, while guilt is an emotion that rises after a transgression of ones own or cultural values which is about actions or behavior. there is an important psychological difference in saying to someone that they are bad as contrasted with their behavior is bad. the former leads to shame; the latter to guilt. in guilt culture, people should know what is right and what is wrong and they would feel guilty, their heart would be tortured if they do something wrong or even think something wrong, however, it is only focused on their behaviors but not themselves. while we chinese believe a man is bad if he commits bad things. thus chinese parents think that criticism is the best love in the world to keep their children away from the dangerous world while british parents support and encourage their children at all time. chinese parents seem to only see their childrens bad side. british parents only look at their childrens good side. chinese teachers always favor the good students. british teachers love everyone equally. actually, they love bad students more than good students. during parents meeting, chinese teachers tell the parents every single mistake that their children made in school while british teachers will always find good things to say to the parents, even to those with the worst grades.2. oneness vs. dividedness between man and naturetraditional value towards the universe or the relationship between human and nature is that human should be harmonious with nature. many people say that chinese culture is the original source of many things, such as “what you do not want for yourself, do not do to others” (己所不欲，勿施于人) and “people-oriented”(以人为本), these principles in fact also arise in other human civilizations and are not unique to us. in addition, concepts like “peace”, “science”, “harmony”, “balance”, and “keeping pace with the times” share the support of the wise throughout human civilization. suzhou garden reveals the attitude of chinese people towards human and nature. pavilions, pathways, and other structures are integrated with the natural features of water, trees and rocks. everyone in it cannot find the obvious distinction between being inside and outside the garden or the building. however, the british are incline to control their surroundings. interiors and exteriors are distinct spaces. nature was usually considered as a wilderness or a paradise. they should tame the wilderness and keep the paradise pure from others. under both circumstances, nature is not inside of human society. and we can also find this from genesis, the first part of holy bible about the creation of human beings and other things like plants and animals. at the time god created adam, he gave adam the dominance over all other things he created. adam and his descendents stand apart from and above nature and are told to use the natural world to meet human needs. as conqueror of nature, humans are encouraged to control and exploit nature in any way they like. in contrast, chinese believe we should live harmoniously with nature, our master confucius once said “oneness between man and nature(天人合一)”. it refers to the obedience and worship of human towards nature and nature laws. people integrate the alternation between night and day, and alternation of different seasons with their daily life and activities. and they also believed that all in the world is in circulation and pursued the harmony with each other. so there is a saying like that “man proposes, heaven disposes(谋事在人，成事在天)”. influenced by the thought of oneness between man and nature, chinese people considered there was something like destiny controlling their life and they cannot change it. so what they can do is to be meek. chinese believe in a harmonious relationship between man and nature, in the unity of mans spirit with nature, and in the continuum. in chinese thought patterns, objects are studied from an overall point of view. this thought pattern is constantly reinforced through social life. british, like other westerners, worship individuality, believing that while man lives in nature, he is independent of nature and must struggle with nature to meet his needs. as a result, the british thought pattern is based on scientific and quantitative analysis and strict logical reasoning. the divergence between these two thought patterns gives rise to many of the differences between the two languages. the meanings of chinese words are usually general while the meanings of english words are specific. traditional chinese medical science believes there is a balance between yin and yang in peoples body, and when you are ill which means yin and yang in your body are imbalanced. so you should stay at home to give your body a chance to recover the harmony of yin and yang. the medicines they use are very gentle and would take longer time to cure than those of the british. because they think that human body is part of nature and needs to be guided back to balance again. therefore, the medicine should integrate with the body. whereas, the british believe that human body is just an object that can be studied and controlled. so they have invented many powerful medicines to care themselves and many side effects followed as a result of this.however, british value towards nature is changing because they now realize the consequence of their mastery over nature. in the past decades, scientists and researchers have found that a large number of diseases and other problems were caused by their over-exploit of nature. as a result of this, more and more people realize the importance of the balance between human and nature. and they gradually adopt the attitude of oneness between human and nature.3. past vs. future orientationwe chinese are considered to live in past-oriented society. much attention was paid to prior events in history, established religions, and traditions. we feel we have unlimited continuity of time, an unraveling rather than a strict boundary. birth and death are not such absolute ends since the universe continues and humans, though changing form, continue as part of it. people may do many things at the same time in this approach to time, for instance, conversations in a moment (such as a meeting in which people speak simultaneously, “talking over” each other as they discuss their subjects), or many times and peoples during one process (such as a ceremony in which those family members who have died are felt to be present as well as those yet to be born into the family). in fact, i believe so. even today, our chinese children have no conception of superman in their mind when playing. when you ask somebody when would finish the task or business assigned, the answer you get would be like this “just a minute(等一会儿)”. if you come to china for the first time, you would get irritated because in fact they could not finish it even after “two minutes”, and you may wait for one or two hours. some one says he believes that chinese always have enough time. here, time is seen as moving endlessly through various cycles, becoming and vanishing. time stretches far beyond the human ego or lifetime. there is a certain timeless quality to time, an aesthetic almost too intricate and vast for the human mind to comprehend. the important thing is what had happened in the past, so they put much attention to their history. they would spare no effort to rewrite their history. and they are afraid of changes. if a new method or technology were introduced, they would compare it to a historical event or by supporting it with a quotation from a respected leader of the past. and that is why many chinese tend to quote saying of the famous when writing articles or speaking to show their talent. whereas, the british quote less from the past than we chinese do. if you do this, you probably make them think you are out of date.for british, time is a resource that can be used well or poorly. time is money. everyone only gets limited time in his life: hed better use it wisely or he will achieve nothing. the future will not be better than the past or the present unless people use their time for constructive, future-oriented activities. thus, british admire a well-organized person who has a schedule for doing things. the ideal person is punctual and is considerate of other peoples time. time must be saved whenever possible and used wisely every day. you must make an appointment if you want to see your friends, to see a doctor or on other occasions. otherwise, you will be refused in most of the time. because people have a very heavy schedule and they do not want to be disturbed in fol