Our Chinese love is materialistic, since ancient times, we Chinese people pay attention to “matching”。 Men must be better than their spouse’s family conditions; men must receive higher education than women; men must earn more money than women, or there are suspected of living of women。 Even in height there is a requirement, men must be taller than women, even a little higher。 If a woman looks for a boyfriend who has worse condition than her, then the love between them will be strongly opposed by their parent。 Even if they get married, the marriage would not be blessed by their friends and relatives。 Only the two sides “matched”, both parents will think they can lead a happy life。 They think that the proper material conditions are more important than the basis of love, they never know the true love and like-minded feelings are the foundation of a happy marriage。 That’s why I think the love and marriage in China are doped with too much substance。 We know that love means the couples will eventually get marriage。 For Chinese men, career is higher than love, whereas for women, marriage is just a guarantee of survival。 Some people have described the Chinese marriage as love is spiritual, marriage is materialistic。 Many colleagues in our life would like to inquire about their job, income, or how many houses they have before falling in love with someone。 Of course, everyone has the right to pursue a happy life and their own lifestyle, but the concept of Chinese marriage is easy to found。 Chinese love is more materialistic than spirit。You should be faithful to your spouse once you get married。
Meanwhile, Chinese would like to focus on kindness and filial piety, ritual and righteousness combination, while Westerners are more fastidious about personal feelings。 Foreign men, of course, do not want to marry an ugly person, but in contrast, they attach more importance to the impact of the heart and ideas of communication。 Therefore, When check with a stranger, they tend to elaborate on their hobbies, including what books they like to read, what TV programs they usually enjoy and what sports they love to do。 In general,Western countries take the capitalist road, they are frankly to their lover。 People can fight for the independence of a country, to say nothing of fighting for love。 If there is a true love between the lovers, their parents always approve of this marriage。 So we always hear that the love of Westerner is pure just as the Chinese saying。 “The most important part of standards of choosing spouse for Westerner is compatibility, the rest of, such as family background, education background are not taken into consideration。” (Yu 199)
3。2 The different ways of expressions文献综述
The different expressions between Chinese and Western countries from the perspectives of love and marriage have been pided into three parts。 The first part is the differences of family view。 The meaning of extending the family view is based on the differences between personal interest and entire interest。 The second part is the means of expressing emotions。 The last is the differences of moral outlook。
By analyzing the attitudes toward love and marriage, Chinese spouses’ purpose of marriage is to meet the whole family interest, however, Westerner’s marriage purpose is always to love with each other。 It can be extended to the differences of personal interest and entire interest。 Comparing with Western culture, the Chinese culture pays more attention to family view and entire interest, Western culture emphasize personal interest。
On the other hand, Chinese people are too shy to express their emotion。 For example, in East Wind: West Wind , when Kwei-lan is with her husband, she never says anything more, she is silent as a follow without a sound, and she only can use her eyes and face expression to talk with her husband(Pearl 22)。 But the Westerners can express their emotion frankly, they can say I love you directly and show their love to others obviously。