中西方文化差異

1、Cultural Differences in Daily Life between China and the West Reflected in Pushing HandsAcknowledgementsI am greatly indebted to the people, who helped me, and without their help, this paper would be impossible，especially my supervisor -My teacher Ma Shuli. She gave me the valuable guidance, encoura

2、gement and some suggestions. I am also grateful to all the teachers working at North University of China. I have learnt a lot from them in terms of professional knowledge and research method. Without their inspiring lectures and enlightenment during the past three years, the completion of this paper

3、 would be impossible.Last but not least, I want to thank my parents and my brother for their love and support during the whole terms of my education. My equal thanks also go to my roommates for their consideration and support during my tedious writing process.AbstractIn the process of Chinese and we

4、stern cultural exchange, the differences between Chinese and western culture is a problem which we have to face. The film is the product of a particular culture. And watching classical films is the best way of knowing cultural differences between Chinese and western in daily life. Film and televisio

5、n programs, as public communication media, play an important role in promoting the cultural communication between the China and the west. The film Pushing Hands reflects Chinese and western cultural differences in daily life, including Chinese and western dietary habits, children s education and dai

6、ly etiquette. The reasons for these differences are geographic environment, economic system and traditional ethnic. We must solve the problem of Chinese and western cultural differences in order to achieve better development. When it comes to the differences of western culture, what we should do is

7、to discard the dross and select the essence. At the same time we should neither completely dismiss the western culture nor entirely affirm it. Thus we can promote exchanges and integration of Chinese and western culture.Keywords: movies; cultural differences; exchange and integration 摘 要在中西方文化交流過程中，

8、中西方文化差異是我們不得不面對的一個(gè)問題。電影是特定文化的產(chǎn)物，了解中西方日常生活中的文化差異最好的辦法就是觀看經(jīng)典的電影。電影和電視節(jié)目作為一個(gè)大眾交流媒體，在中西方文化交流中扮演著重要的角色。 推手這部電影反映了日常生活中的中西方文化差異，具體表現(xiàn)在中西方飲食習(xí)慣、兒童教育教育以及日常禮儀等方面。產(chǎn)生這些差異的原因包括地理環(huán)境、經(jīng)濟(jì)體制和民族傳統(tǒng)。面對文化差異時(shí)，我們應(yīng)該做的是取其精華去其糟粕，既不全盤肯定也不全盤否定，從而促進(jìn)中西方文化的交流和融合。關(guān)鍵詞：電影；文化差異；交流和融合Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsiAbstract in English

9、iiAbstract in ChineseiiiTable of ContentsivI Introduction11.1 Background and significance of the topic11.2 Research at home and abroad2II About Pushing Hands3III Cultural Differences in Daily Life between China and the West53.1 Dietary habits53.1.1 Cuisine53.1.2 Social function83.2 Differences in ch

10、ildren s education93.2.1 Educational concept93.2.2 Education methods103.3 Daily etiqutte11IV Reasons for Cultural Differences124.1 Geographical environment124.2 Economic system134.3 National tradition13V Conclusion14References16vi中北大學(xué)信息商務(wù)學(xué)院2015屆畢業(yè)論文I Introduction1.1 Background and significance of th

11、e topicIn the process of cultural communication development, China has been an active advocator and practitioner. Silk Road, Zheng He's seven voyages and the Westernization Movement have witnessed the communication between Chinese and Western cultures. China's four great inventions spread to

12、 Europe through the communication of Chinese and western cultures, which play an important role in promoting the development of Europe and even the whole world.In todays society where the development of science and technology is quick, the intercultural communication and the cultural communication b

13、etween different countries and nations has been intensified. Since we experienced the Qing Dynasty where rulers adopted the policy of isolation, Chinese can better understand the importance and necessity of cultural communication. As we all know that there are many differences between China and Amer

14、ica, and I think the culture is the biggest one. Western culture is a culture that expands and develops outwards, and Chinese culture is a culture that expands internally rather than outwards. Learning Chinese culture can help us better understand our nation, and learning western culture can help us

15、 learn the world (Zhu Xiying & Xu Yuxia, 2005). However, in the process of Chinese and western cultural exchange, the difference between Chinese and western culture is a problem which we have to face. Cultural differences will largely influence the exchange of Chinese and western culture and bri

16、ng a lot of inconveniences to us. For better development, we must solve the problem of Chinese and western cultural difference. First of all, we have to know the differences between Chinese and western culture. With the reform, people had a better understanding of western culture through newspapers,

17、 the website and films and television programs. Films and television programs, as public communication media, play an important role in the cultural communication between the east and the west.In modern times, with the development of science, technology and economy, people must have a lot of communi

18、cation with west countries. So, we are going to meet with many challenges. Yet, due to the lack of cultural background of western countries, there exist some barriers and misunderstandings during the communication between Chinese and western people. When it comes to the differences of western cultur

19、e, what we should do is to discard the dross and select the essence and we should not deny each of them. At the same time we should neither completely dismiss the Western culture nor entirely affirm it. 1.2 Research at home and abroadWith the development of the world economy and the frequent exchang

20、e of foreign economic culture, more and more people want to understand the culture of Western world. Therefore, there are many scholars and experts who are working on the classic films or television programs about the cultural differences between China and the West, which can help us understand West

21、ern culture better, such as cooking culture, daily etiquette, wedding culture and so on. So, the best way of knowing west culture is through the movies that are the product of particular culture. Movies may reflect the national, regional, religious beliefs and other aspects of culture. So, a good mo

22、vie is not only the concentration of a national culture but also one of the most direct expression of civilized countries where can see many things that are never mentioned in our books (Gu Zhengkun, 2007). Therefore, analyzing film is the best way to understand the cultural differences between chin

23、a and the west. Just like Pushing Hands, it starts from the simple scenes of life and reflects the cultural differences between China and the west in many aspects of everyday life. And this attracted the attention of countless domestic and foreign scholars. At present, many domestic and foreign scho

24、lars devote themselves to doing research from the following aspects. Many scholars have published articles with reference to the film Pushing Hands. Some of them aimed to analyze differences in cultural patterns, such as Huang Youyou (2010) in his paper China and West Cultural Diversity Patterns Ref

25、lected in Pushing Hands who analyzed from individualism and collectivism, high context and low-context analysis and other aspects of different cultural patterns. This helps us have a good understanding of different cultural patterns and provides our research with a lot of help. Others analyzed with

26、a view of cultural identities such as Lu Lei (2010) who analyzed the cultural identities in Pushing Hands and revolved around the films conflict to investigate cultural differences caused by an individual's cultural identity problem. Wang Guofeng (2008) analyzed the causes of the cooking culture

27、 and pointed out that Chinese and Western cooking culture is merging with and profit by each other. There is a monograph about western culture and film edited by Li Qingming and Shi Xiaomei (2007) called Western Culture and the Movie in 2007. Thought of the classic Western films as the main line and

28、 introduced various aspects of western culture systematically, at the same time it described and analyzed a lot of cultural differences and provided a large number of documents for us to study the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. Comparatively speaking, these scholars are prone to s

29、tudy the abstract western cultural differences. In order to have a better master of the differences we must study some specific Western cultural differences. Compared with the scholars mentioned above, Wang Guofengs study is more specific in studying the differences between western and Chinese cultu

30、re. He analyzes the differences between Chinese and western culture in Gua Sha, Wedding, Pushing hands and draws a conclusion by comparing the three movies. Of course, this conclusion is somewhat vague. Therefore, in my paper, I want to do some specific research from some aspects of the Western cult

31、ural differences in daily life reflected in Pushing Hands to help people to better adapt to the current Western cultural exchanges. II About Pushing HandsPushing Hands is a classic film about family, which is guided by the director Ang Lee from Taiwan. It was the first film that told a story of fath

32、ers love and selflessness. Zhu Xiaoshengs father studied TAI CHI when he was a child. With the time going the father was old, so the son asked him to travel from home to America and decided to take care of him. The father always thought he would have a happy life because he could live with his son a

33、nd grandson. Because of the different language barrier, different habits, the father can not take care of himself very well. If he does not stay with his son, he will get lost. So, he has to stay at home and practice his TAI CHI. His daughter in law named Martha who is a writer and she is worried fo

34、r her creative work. When she is faced with her Chinese father she feels more and more pressure, because they have nothing to say. And they can not understand each other. In America, because of the different language, the father has nothing to do, so he stays at home to watch TV from the Mainland or

35、 listen to the Beijing opera without headphones. However the sound is very high, which makes his daughter in law feel so angry. Due to the noise, she can not write intently and turns off old TV directly. The father suddenly run away from home, so the son and his wife have a big quarrel. Zhu Xiaoshen

36、g wants to send his father to the old peoples apartment but he does not know how to tell his father. He remembers that his father always talks about Mrs. Chen, so he thinks it is a good way to let the two families have a picnic outside together. He and Mrs Chen think it may be a good idea to let the

37、 two old people stay together, because Chinese people enjoy group working (Nelson, 2002). Mrs. Chen does not have a good impression on his father, but she still tells him that their sons and daughters came up with the idea. The father is so shocked to hear about it and he leaves a message and goes o

38、ut of home again at night to live independently. The father washes dishes in a restaurant, and he is scolded by his boss because he does his work very slowly. So, he loses his temper and uses his TAI CHI hurting more than 10 people. Finally, he is taken to the police station. Zhu Xiaosheng and Marth

39、a see him in the news report on television and they rush to the police station. But the father is so disappointed that he wants to live independently. And his only hope is that his son, daughter-in-law and his grandson visit him once a month. According to a survey, in 1970s only 15 percent couples l

40、ive with their parents after they are married, and a large percentage of people chose not to live with their parents (Allen, 1978). But people like to live together in China (Xu Yanxing, 2004). And this is part of the reason for the contradiction between the father and the daughter-in-law. This film

41、 is the condensed essence from the life representative of the events and characters of artistic processing and also is overview and summary of real life. Pushing Hands reflects different outlook on life, on the world and on value. Through watching it we can learn western culture and understand the e

42、ssence of Chinese and western culture. And this can help us to better communicate with the westerner in daily life. So, it is necessary to learn the cultural difference in daily life from Pushing Hands.III Cultural Differences in Daily Life between China and the WestDifferent Geographic location, la

43、nguage, ethnic, culture and historical origins created different cultures. And culture conflict and collision is inevitable. In Pushing Hands, it describe Chinese and western cultural differences in daily life. The film has shown the cultural conflict mainly in the different understanding of the ess

44、ence of traditional culture. And cultural differences reflected in this film include diet, education and daily etiquette.3.1 Dietary habits “Food is the paramount necessity of the people” is a timeless truth and is common different in different countries. Although truth is the same, the performance

45、and concept of diet are different in different nations. Many different dietary habits are obvious in China and western countries. These differences bring many inconveniences to Chinese who live in western countries and westerners who live in China. There are many micromesh characterization and descr

46、iption of cultural differences in dietary habits. With the entrance of the 21st century, cross-cultural communication has become more and more frequent, among which dietary culture has been the most basic content. However, because of the differences in living environments, customs and value concepts

47、, China and western countries have formed their own different dietary cultures. As a result, there appear some misunderstandings between the communication of Chinese and the Westerners. 3.1.1 CuisineIn China, cooking is an art, which embodies the unity of the rigor and improvisation, so cooking has

48、been extremely interesting to attract the Chinese diet for the pleasures. A variety of cooking methods, fried, explosion, bombing, slip, simmered, steamed, boiled, stewed, roasted, and others dishes made dazzling. Compared with the Chinese food that pays much attention to the taste, the western food

49、 stresses on the nutrition. They concern that whether the food contains the vitamins, protein and how to absorb them fully.Due to the different western philosophy, western diet is focused on science, paying attention to nutrition. The westerners pay little attention to the form and taste of a dish b

50、ut focus much more on nutrition (Du Li & Sun Junxiu, 2006). They pay much attention to the amount of protein, fat, heat, and vitamin. They analyze whether the dish has an appropriate collocation of nutrition, whether the amount of calories is moderate, and whether the nutrition can be fully abso

51、rbed. Westerners emphasize on the original flavor and nutrition of food. Therefore, they adopt fresh raw materials and try to keep their original nutrition and taste as much as possible when they cook them. Even though the dishes are bitter to eat they will eat them provided they contain lots of nut

52、rition. As a Chinese saying goes, The masses regard sufficient food as their heaven. It shows the importance of eating in the mind of Chinese people. Chinese take a good meal as a pursuit of art of beauty. Now people can watch programs such as Everyday Cate about cooking on TV every day. Chinese are

53、 particularly interested in eating. The pursuit of enjoyment in food has almost reached to a height that cannot be higher. People try their best to perfect a dish not only from color but also from incense, taste and shape. It means that in the eyes of Chinese people, a dish should look beautiful, sm

54、ell good and taste delicious. They not only stress the beauty of the food but also the beauty of the environment and the tableware. Various kinds of beauty are reconciled in a well-prepared dinner. The chefs match the colors of food carefully, such as the collocation of the main colors and the sub-c

55、olors, and the collocation of warm colors and cold colors. This makes the dinner look colorful and stimulates peoples appetite. At the same time many raw materials are engraved into the shapes of flowers, birds, mountains and human which are extremely beautiful. In addition, the dietary environment

56、is sometimes full of a kind of elegant and attractive city ambiance and sometimes brims with a quiet and beautiful rural atmosphere. The appearance of a dinner is very important but Chinese people regard taste as the most important. Therefore, it is no wonder that Chinese people are very interested

57、in the taste of a dish. They try to reconcile the flavor of every ingredient to get an attractive taste. In Pushing Hands, Old Zhu and Marsha eat their breakfast alone. Martha opens the refrigerator, in which there is a half piece of cake, and then she eats a little piece of cake. From the numerous

58、similar fingerprints on the cake, this breakfast habit has lasted for a long time. While old Zhu takes out rice, tomato, scrambled eggs and chicken from refrigerator as his breakfast. Obviously, these are leftovers of last night. Old Zhu puts these foods in the microwave to hot, and then he sits at the table to enjoy his breakfast. Though these are leftovers from the previous night, it is most important to enjoy the food. From it we can see