A Report On Chinese Culture

As a first-generation Asian-American college student and the first in my family to move onto higher education, my chances of academic success were improbable.

Every time I come home from college, my family and I would go out to yumcha or, as directly translated from Cantonese, to “drink tea. However, drinking tea is only one component of yumcha. To yumcha is to converse with company over a meal of many small dishes and hot tea. Going yumcha is social activity brought to the United States by the people from the Guangdong region of China, also known as Cantonese people. When they immigrated to the United States, yumcha became an important tradition because it also enabled Cantonese parents to socialize their children into the Chinese culture through the language and social practices involved in the meal and the ritual and meaning surrounding the tea. However, to Chinese-Americans such as myself, going yumcha with native Chinese people also emphasized my American identity due to my food choices. Yet when I go yumcha with non-Chinese people, I become distinctly aware of my Chinese identity when they fail the language or rituals of this tradition. The only time when I do not feel alienated during yumcha is when I go with my other

1 in 6 adults residing in what was once among the most literate nations in the world have been deemed “functionally illiterate”. During the 1800s, over 90% of the former nations population could speak our native tongue. Currently, only about 0.2% of our population is fluent in the indigenous language. Welcome to Hawaiʻi!

Yung Wing in his memoir “My Life in China and America” showed how limited the new immigrants opportunities where when he describes how colleges such as Brown and Hammond offered him college, if he would sign a pledge that would make him a missionary to China upon graduation. Yung Wing declined this offer because he detected that these American colleges where attempting to handicap what work he could do upon graduation. This example of the pledge shows that higher learning came with a catch, and that it takes diligence to avoid falling for the catch. Although some writers such as Mary Antin in her autobiography wrote the chapter titled “The Promise of Free Education,” in which she wrote that, “Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune or poverty.” Although this “promise” of free education may have seemed like a great idea conceptually, in reality this idea falls flat. At the end of this chapter, Mary Antin describes how a language and culture barrier extended between her and her family and the educators when she wrote, “At last the four of us stood around the teacher’s desk; and my father, in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge,

Born in a traditional Chinese family, Ming began to know about people of backgrounds different than him after he came to the U.S. in 2014. What he learned and experienced in CSUEB had transformed him from a boy having a racial stereotype and religious prejudice to a man who shows high respect for cultural diversity. By making a formal interview with Tiana and Ming, I learned that school education has significant influences on personal growth and development because it improves students’ abilities to demonstrate knowledge of the history, race, and gender in American context and prepares them to be a person who has abilities to respond to diverse perspectives linked to cultural identities, such as race, gender, and

In today’s society, the words “education” and a “better life” fit hand and hand with the other. The desire to create a higher quality lifestyle and the thirst for knowledge is a recurring theme in The Achievement of Desire. Much like Richard Rodriguez, my parents were not native to America and therefore, learning a new language and adapting to the culture was an indefinite struggle. Growing up, many Americans perceived my family and I as “too Chinese” and in the eyes of the Chinese, I was “too American”; this concept was only intensified after my trip to China in 2011. The addition of Western-style education in the household of a second generation American family unintentionally alienates the family members who participate in the schooling

Their mentality constantly fueled them to escape the hole of poverty that relentlessly sucked us in. They imparted the persistence of Chinese ethos to me and encouraged me to apply it to my academic endeavors. I began to ask for help from teachers after school and toiled each evening to master the language. By the end of the year, I was deemed advanced. I had tasted the rewards of hard work. I finally understood why my parents had clutched the persistent beacon of hope in the darkness of poverty and

I immigrated to America with my family five years ago and received an education that is impossible to gain in China. Some may not know this, but access to college is very competitive and one’s social status plays a significant role to China’s economy. Therefore, my parents made an very important decision, which was to leave my mother country and step in a foreign country that is America. Here, I am able to experience mountains of obstacles and learn how to solve these complex life cases.

Throughout her article, Chu emotionally targets her American audience by complementing the educational system in the United States in comparison to that in China. She begins by describing the “traditional Chinese approach to education,” which produces “undue psychological burdens,” as “outdated” and “discouraging” to establish its myriad of flaws. Moreover, Chu describes

Since I was a child, I would hear the story about how my parents were forced to flee from their country due to the Vietnam War. They were always open about their struggles assimilating into the American culture, and in order to minimize the cultural shock for my siblings and I, they chose to live in a Vietnamese enclave in Orange County. As a first-generation Chinese-American, I had the privilege to be part of a family decorated with a multitude of Chinese-Vietnamese traditions and celebrations. It was when I began to attend high school that I realized that I was a minority and with that label came bias among my peers. As I began to feel that I had mastered the challenges of high school, college began to loom ahead of me. It was then I saw how the advantages my affluent peers had could make a huge difference in one’s future. Even though neither of my parents obtained a college degree, they always encouraged my siblings and I to pursue higher education. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, it was up to us to figure out how to make our dream come true. Being awarded the Mithun Scholarship for academic excellence was one of the many tools I would use to overcome this barrier. College gave me the opportunity to better learn how to budget, time manage, and be self-sufficient. My drive and work ethic gave me the invaluable opportunity to pursue a college degree.

Cultural values are the core principles and ideals upon which societies exist. Those values reflect several parts of a community, including customs, traditions, rituals, and religious beliefs among others. Cultural values are passed along from one generation to another and define the way of our everyday life. With the increase in globalization, it is important to understand cross-cultural values, and as parents or educators who are involved in the process of raising the next generation to understand some cross-cultural values and guide the children to appreciate the diverse environment that surrounds them in class, in playgrounds, or even in families.

For over 2000 years Taoism has been a major influence on China and its culture, but what exactly is Taoism? Taoism is a philosophical religion that has a complex origin and a unique way of perceiving the meaning of life, and to understand this distinct religion it is important for an individual to know about its history, sacred sites, teachings and beliefs, practices, holidays, and presence in the modern world.

Chinese culture is truly one of the great civilization our world has come across. It boasts a vast geographic expanse, over 4000 years of written history, as well as a rich and profound traditional society. Many aspects of Chinese civilization can be traced back many centuries. It is so diverse and unique, yet harmoniously blended, and presents itself a priceless benefit to the world.

China has about five thousand years history which is a very long period of time. Also, the Chinese civilization was growing with these periods of time and it will continues greater than ever. Many wars and unhappinesses were happening during this period. Although, the time has passed, the histories and the civilizations have not passed. These family virtues, serious, working attitudes, sense of justice and the great Confucian tradition have been deeply assimilated into the Chinese people. Some Chinese traditions are different from North American’s. The Chinese culture has many special characteristics which are very interesting for people to learn.

“As a international students, I care a lot about the difference of education system between the U.S. and China.”(culture shock) I realized that the educational ideas