Differences between the Chinese and American cultures 中美文化比较

摘要：中美文化有其共通之处，但也有很多的差异。

中国有着悠久的历史，经过长时间的文化积淀逐渐形成具有中国特色的传统文化。

美国虽然历史不长，但是美国文化已经成为世界的主流文化之一。

今天我们将从教育、宗教、饮食等方面来对比中美文化之间的异同，提高我们跨文化交际的能力。

关键字：中国，美国，文化异同，教育，宗教，饮食
Abstract
There are some similarities between Chinese and American culture，but also kinds of differences。

China is a country that has a long history，in the long period cultural accumulation，the traditional culture with Chinese characteristics came into being。

Although the United S tates don’t have such a long history，American culture has become one of the mainstream culture in the world。

Today we’ll Compare the similarities and differences between Chinese and American cultures from three aspects:religion，education and food。

In this way，we can improve our ability of cross-culture communication。

Key words：China,America,similarities,differences,education,religion,food Differences between the Chinese and American cultures
As we know ,there are many differences between Chinese and American cultures. If we desire to learn about U.S or communicate with Americans in proper way ,it is necessary for us to know about cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural communication (also referred to as intercultural communication) is a field of study that focus on how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Only if we are familiar with the similarities and differences can we avoid cultural conflicts and get along well with foreign friends. When you are conc erned about what you can do and what you can’t, your foreign friends will show respect for your national culture and there is no doubt that you can enhance the level of cross-culture communication .In the essay,I’ll talk about similarities and differences in three aspects between Chinese and American culture :religion ,food and festival.
1.religion
America is remarkable now, as in the past,for its attachment to the principle of freedom of belief or disbelief . –The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States indicates that "Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or
prohibit the free exercise thereof."So you can choose your indivisual relision.According to the research, The largest religion in the US is Christianity, practiced by the majority of the population (76% in 2008)；Speaking in general terms, the contemporary American is a Christian country. A research indicates that most Americans believe the existence of Santa Clous, Christ Jesus and angel even after they have received edu cation and become adults. It’s easy to see the ingrained status of Christianity in the United States of America. Christianity has the idea that people have original sin, because human ancestors, Adam and eva had sinned, corrupt moral invaded their body, and transmitted to their descendants, the result is that all mankind have sin. Obviously, Christianity preached that man and God, the separation of man and nature. China is a multi-religious country, and Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Christian are the main religions in the country. Incomplete statistics show that there are more than 100 million religious followers in China with over 85 000 religious sites, over 3000 religious groups and some 74 religious colleges. Chinese people also enjoy the freedom of religious belief according to law, and regular religious activities are protected by the Constitution. All religious believers and non-religious people in the country respect for each other in beliefs and customs and live together in harmonies. While Chinese religion would emphasize that the harmony between man and nature, issues of life within a confined themselves, to solve problems with people- oriented. It’s quite different from the Christianity.
2.food
Generally speaking, we Chinese think food is very important to man. People often associate food with important holidays and the chance to meet distinguished guests. The Chinese food not only is very delicious and tasty but also very pleasing to your senses and many of dishes have very beautiful and fancy names. The Chinese have the food culture of our own which are quite different from westerners. In the west, people pay more attention to the nutrition of food rather than the looks of it. The cuisine and table manners are quite different from ours in a great extent.It is a very common practice we Chinese people say "Have you had your meal?" when they meet
each other around the time before or after meals. In fact, it is a kind of greeting to communicate with each other. But foreigners cannot understand that because they think why you ask me this. They tend to think you want to invite me to dinner or I am not rich enough to feed myself regularly but that is my business not yours. Chinese think food is very important and essential to people so it shows some care and concern about you. Very often it puzzles foreigners a lot that we ask and talk so much when we order our food in the restaurant. One reason is we ask what the food or the dish is and try to clarify it because you sometimes never know what the food is just according the name of the food until it is put on your table in the restaurant just. While most of western food has a simple and clear name and you know what it is when you hear the name. For instance, there is a traditional food call "fish and chips" in the UK. You see it is very obvious it is fried fish and potato chips. The reason for this in China is on the one hand to try to tell you the way it cooks such as cook, fry, grill and broil in the name and on the other it has beautiful good names so that you have a good imagination and association to let you have a good appetite.
Generally speaking, we don't use much tableware when we have our meal in China. Mainly we have bowl, dishes, chopsticks and spoons, which we don't use very often. In serving English meals, they use so much tableware with different kinds and sizes. The Chinese do not know how to use them properly when they are invited to dinner in English family. For example there are different kinds of names for glasses in English, such as wine glass, cherry glass, brandy glass, beer glass, snifter glass, champion flute and high bowl. You can see tableware also show the food culture of different countries.
cation
Us’s higher education was considered as the best education in the world. Comparing the elementary education between American and China, people's universal view will be: China's elementary education aims to build the foundation of education with more study and less thought; while US's education aims to bulid such an education to raise the creativity with less study and more thought. the Chinese
students study more, actually pay little attention to the practice, and cannot study for the purpose of 's education pays more attention to raise student's self-confidence,independence,spirit of supporting oneself, but China's education emphases on training the students to be strict,rigorous spiritual. When American school inspects the result of student, they emphasize more on the ability to analyze and solve the question but not the ability of memory or description. The American students donot need the mechanical memorizing, but display creative thought as far as possible; This can cultivate student's study interest, raise the ability of doing it byself and make the study be one kind of creative action.
Conclusion:Chinese culure is broad and profound,but American culture also has its unique and style.After learning this class,I have a general impression on American culture,there are quite differences between Chinese and American culture.I think that it’s beneficial to be familiar to this differences for our cross-cultual communication.
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