- 上一篇：《儿子与情人》中的恋母情结
- 下一篇：从汤亭亭的《中国佬》看华裔美国人的文化身份认同变迁历程
4.3 Different culture values
4.3.1 collectivism vs inpidualism
4.3.2 masculine vs feminine
4.3.3 power distance
5. CONCLUSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Differences Between Chinese and American Food Culture
1. Introduction
With the development of international communication, the communication between people from different countries or cultures is increasing, and the communication between them is called cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural communication has become an indispensable part of people's lives. Different countries formed different cultures because of different regions, different ethnic groups and so on. Food culture is an important part of non-language culture in cross-cultural communication. China has the history of more than 5,000 years, in which food culture plays an important role. Chinese people advocate “Food is the paramount necessity of the people”, as a result, they create a very glorious food culture during thousands of years. It is common for Chinese people to greet others by saying “Have you eat?”. And even when people are blaming others, they can describe them as “rice bucket” which means they are incompetent. Chinese people have thoroughly studied all aspects of food, which is really helpful for the formation of their own food culture. Some Chinese food has such a long history that they can even be the represent of traditional culture. On the contrary, it is only 241 years since America was founded in 1776, so the history of American food is much shorter than that of Chinese. By learning the differences of Chinese and American food culture, the foreign language learners can not only increase the understanding of the language and culture, but also improve the success rate of cross-cultural communication and avoid misunderstanding and communicative obstacles because of the inappropriate behavior.
2. Theoretical foundation: Geert Hofstede’s national value dimensions
This part will give you a general introduction on Geert Hofstede’s national value dimensions theory. Then is the detailed description on three dimensions: inpidualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity and power distance. These three dimensions will be used to analysis the differences between Chinese and American food culture later in this paper.
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory is a theoretical framework for cross cultural communication. This theory helps us to understand our own culture more easily and help us understand how other people perceive their culture. The original theory proposed four dimensions in 1980: power distance index(PDI), inpidualism vs. collectivism(IDV), uncertainty avoidance index(UAI), and masculinity vs. femininity(MAS) based on his statistical analysis of two unique data. In December 1980, Hofstede met with Michael Harris Bond, and the research did by Bond independently added the fifth dimension: long-term orientation Index. In 2010, Hofstede ranked “indulgence vs. restrain” as the sixth dimension.
Inpidualism and collectivism index refers to the degree of an inpidual to express himself or herself freely and independently in a group or social society. The score of this dimension shows if the society has strong group cohesion. As for a society which has low score in inpidualism, the members of the society think “we” is much more important than “I” and their own desires should be curbed for the good of the group. But for the society which has high score in inpidualism, members fight for personal goals and desires. And people consider pursuing personal achievements at the expense of others as reasonable.
Masculinity and femininity index shows the the traditional values of a society when it comes to gender roles. In Hofstede’s findings, he indicated that males in the society which has high score in masculinity play an important role in the dominant structure. This kind of societies tend to pay more attention to ambition, control, achievements and so on. In the society which has low score in masculinity, women are treated more equally and people consider help, love, sharing, relationships and so on as important.