跨文化交际 中美友谊观

Differences between Chinese and American on pattern of friendship

People from Chinese culture and American culture both need friendship in their lives, which is established in different interactions with others in offices, social activities, schools, communities and so on. However, the meaning of word “friend”, the involvement in the friendship, the maintainance of friendship and the expectations of friends are remarkably distinctive between these two cultures.

Chinese has quite clear definition of friend and friendship. They establish friendships with like—minded friends whom they affectively bond to or those who share the similar personalities, otherwise, they can not be real friends but just acquaintances. However, for the America, the meaning of “friend” is board, including everyone from causal acquaintance to a best friend.

Chinese involve deeply and affectively in friendship. For one thing, Chinese like enclosing a lot of things to their friends range from age to the conflict with a person, therefore, Chinese share plentiful aspects of their good friends’lives and they are quite familiar with each other. To Chinese people, the more secrets they know about each other, the closer their relationship is. A Chinese may angry with her good friend if she notes that her good friend conceals something from her because she will think she dose not play an important role in her friend’s life. For another thing, the process of establishing friendship is quite the opposite of that of Americans. Chinese are inclined to be reserved and shy when they meet strangers and the relation begins with less intimacy, however, their inner line of defense gradually decrease and they become much closer after they get alone with each other for a period of time. That is not only because they do not take privacy seriously but also because most Chinese prefer to be with others rather than stay alone , which helps their relationship to go deeper. When they want to do something or go somewhere, they will ask their friends to join them. For instance, in colleges , roommates usually go to school together, have meals together, or even go to toilet together during the break( especially among girls), as a result, they have a lot of time to improve their friendships. In contrast, American

friendship just “walks on surface”. Americans make friends in different circles. An Americans probably have a lot of friends at any one time, but their friendship is usually linked to specified activities. He may have work friends, leisure activity (like golfing, swimming, shopping playing cards and so forth) friends and neighborhood friends. One’s friend from a certain circle may know little about his other aspects of life. For example, two friends who made have known each other for a long time since they made acquaintance in a football club and tall about football games, football stars and so on, may know little about each other’s family. They tend not to share all aspects of life with their friends. In addition, friendliness is not always an offer of friendship. Americans are initially very friendly and the inner line of defense is very low at the beginning, but it is not easy for them to develop that friendliness into the stage of a good friendship and the level of intimacy does not change a lot over time before reaching the stage of being good friends because Americans put great emphasis on privacy and they are unwilling to reveal their personal information including salary, age, family. That means the topic between two friends who do not know each other for a long time are very superficial and ordinary, for example, they may talk about food, movie or what they enjoy doing during leisure time, which set barriers to deepen the degree of familiarity .If their privacy is violated, their friendship may develop unsmoothly. Another reason is that Americans are very independent. They do not need friends to keep them company all the time and the time they spend together is not so much.

As to the maintainance of friendship, people in China hope their friendship to be solid, stable and long—lasting. Owing to nostalgia, Chinese’s national characteristic, Chinese like spending time with old friends instead of new acquaintances and they will not allow the friendship that they cherish a lot to wither and die. Take my father as an example, he moved to downtown from the village where he was born and spent his childhood in his twenties, but he has been going to his hometown frequently to hang out with his buddies with whom he grew up with. Recently, he decided to buy a land to build a house in his hometown, so that he can interact with his friends constantly. Secondly, as interdependent self—organization