Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Culture Conflict
Culture Conflict
soon as they can. Active experimentation by the child is encouraged. This is still
one of the disagreements between the different thinking of hierarchy.
Concept of Privacy or personal issues is also the conflict between the two
inhomogeneous cultures. Americans do not like hearing others asking them
about the family size, family income and daily activities even the home address,
telephone number and something related to personal issues. They consider this
privacy that cannot be exposed. On the contrary, asking Asian people about
their family even their means of family support sometimes shows a loving care
or interest. Another aspect of privacy concept can be seen in job interview.
Asian people suppose to be impolite or slightly rude when asking their
interviewer about their salary, welfare and future promotion when hired. To
Americans, this is normal and natural. For they think this is the right of the
interviewee. The view of privacy and the definition of personal are quite
different and even contradictory.
2 / 2 Tsair Lin ( Tai Lam)
parents consists of two morphemes. One represents the root of seniors (parent)
appearing above the morpheme of child. A child is carrying his parent on his
back! This word pronounces Xiao, known as Shao. From this denotation,
love for Chinese people can be understood as non-verbal expression. Americans,
on the other hand, express their love to their parents and children whenever and
wherever they can in whatever situation. Different cultures have different ways
of indicating their feelings.
To sum up, cultures influence communication styles. Cultural styles can
create misunderstandings in ways of expressing among people from different
cultures. Yet, how I try to adapt for cultural difference is still my major concern.
The healthy basis for mutual understanding and intercultural cooperation, as I
assume, is neither ethnocentrism nor xenophilia.