Chinese-American Culture

Cultural differences are apparent from one group of people to another. Culture is based on many things that are passed on from one generation to the next. Most of the time people take for granted their language, beliefs, and values. When it comes the cultural differences of people there is no right or wrong. People should be aware of others culture and respect the differences that are between them. The United States and China are two very large countries that have cultures that are well known through out the world. There are many differences between the United States and China, but there are many contributing factors that shape the cultures of these two countries.

Stories and stereotypes make many people want to change themselves negatively and assimilate just to fit in with society. As time passes, society’s stereotypes for how people of each race should be, which race is more dominant than others, and which race you should be, all play a role in impacting someone’s self-esteem and their insecurities. This is portrayed through Jin Wang, a main character in Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese” when Jin Wang thinks his crush, Amelia, he instantly becomes happy. But then he thinks about Greg and Amelia together and gets mad. He finally zooms into Greg’s blond hair. The next day he goes to school with the same hairstyle. The hair symbolizes Greg’s all American identity because the stereotypical American is portrayed with blond hair and blue eyes. To Jin Wang, this hair symbolizes what he wants to be, so he changed his hair to an “American” hairstyle to get Amelia to like him. Due to stereotypes about how Americans are suppose to look like, Jin Wang feels insecure about himself and wants to change his identity and himself as well to assimilate into American culture and stereotypes. These stereotypes and the Anti-Asian stereotypes impact Jin Wang greatly and make him hate himself as well as his background and where he came from because he believes that in order to be AMerica, you have to be white. Another way that this is portrayed is from a personal experience I had as a kid. Growing up as an Asian kid in America, I didn’t really know

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

     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,

The Mingqi (standing dog) is earthenware, terracotta, or a fired clay that is porous. This type of ceramic results in an earth tone of orange and brown and the lower half of the artwork shows the original hue of the terracotta. Revealed because of deterioration, the vibrant orange creates a contrast of color to the dull green of the glaze. Terracotta can be without glaze but this Han artist finalized the work in glaze and covered the original coloration with a more impacting

To begin with, the reading passage claims that each Chao structure is only house for hundreds of people to live. In contrast, the lecturer argues it that although the Chao structure has the similar shape with the architecture of more recent Southwest societies, these are many differences inside. If hundreds people can living at one Chao structure together, there should are lots of kitchens, but evidence shows that the large Chao structure only has a little fire place for ten families. It's the first

Douglas’ research demonstrates how dirt and cleanliness have diverse cultural meanings depending on one’s setting. Dr. Douglas explains that cleanliness

One of those symbolic motifs that the film follows is Xiu Xiu’s obsession with washing. Chen centers her film plot on Xiu Xiu‘s bathing and washing scenes in three locations: her home, an outdoor pool made for her by Lao Jin, and in the tent. The director complicates what appears at first to be Xiu Xiu’s personal hygiene. Her constant bathing starts as a personal hygiene issue, but it soon becomes a way to “wash away her sins.” At the end of the film, this washing represent a means of transformation.

The first type of pagoda that is considered to be one of the earliest known is called the close-eaved pagoda. A prime example of this pagoda is located at the Chongyusei Temple in Dengfeng County in the Henan Province of China. The pagoda has twelve sides, built entirely out of blue bricks, and stands at forty-one meters tall while containing fifteen close eaves. It was built in 523 A.D., and it has ten floors with octagon shaped rooms that are connected by wooden stairs. It could be speculated that the pagoda was built in a special way, as it came before concrete was dreamed of, and it is still standing after many years.

In China today, slogans on public hygiene are everywhere, restaurants, subways, road sides, to name just a few. Literally, it is one of the priorities of the Chinese government to promote public hygiene and to encourage people to behave civilized in public. Yet here comes the question: why is personal hygiene associated with public in China, and why does it have to do with being civilized? Ruth Rogaski’s Hygienic Modernity provides perceptive answers to these questions. It traces the history of the word weisheng, hygiene in Chinese, through the late-Qing Tianjin, its Republican period, Japanese occupation, and until the first few years of New China. Rogaski argues that the changing meaning of weisheng in Tianjin provides a window to China’s conception of modernity and its emphasis of modernization projects; it is the implication of hygienic modernity in weisheng that marks China’s deficiency, internalized by the intellectuals in the pre-war era and used against imperialism after the establishment of the PRC. In other words, weisheng itself embodies China’s complex modern history represented in the semi-colonial condition of Tianjin as a treaty port. This paper aims to discuss China’s semicoloniality through Rogaski’s concept of hygienic modernity, or weisheng and compare it with the previous week’s reading, i.e. Rhoads Murphey’s and Bryna Goodman’s notions of Chinese

Since the day you were born, you have been taught lessons that will help you get through everyday life. There have been the lessons of sharing, to always help others, and of course, to always be kind to your fellow man. Now, why is it that if you were to see someone use a dirty dinner plate, or drink someone else’s half empty glass of water, you deem that person disgusting? Is it in fact due to the lessons you’ve been taught, or does it stem from something different, such as “magical thinking?” Magical thinking can be found in the case studies, “Funeral Specialists in Cantonese Society: Pollution, Performance, and Social

This year is my forth year that I has been studying in the United State. I’m already used to the U.S. culture and the U.S. living style. So in general, I didn’t experience any culture shock after I got here. If I had any culture shock, it’s probably three years ago. I couldn’t remember any of them. However I do have some thoughts about the differences between the U.S. and China after four years of studying in the United States.

According to Feng shui, all structures have to be laid out carefully along compass lines and in certain configurations to allow ki (Chinese "chi"), the mystic energy of life to flow properly. A reduced ki flow in a home was thought to cause sickness and disharmony. For example, the builders, after consulting with a Yin-yang diviner, would usually create special arrangements to prevent bad ki from entering the home from the northwest. In the first Japanese garden design manual, the Sakuteiki, it is explained how water courses should flow from the northwest to the southeast so that any bad ki could be cleansed by the protective deity of the east Kamogawa (blue dragon), then proceed west again passing under a veranda of the house so as to draw away any evil spirits that might have somehow slipped into the house. Heavy stones were thought to serve as gates or landing points for spirits and were thus placed very carefully. Other design rules applied as well. Influenced by esoteric Buddhism, the garden design was expected to include an island in a pond connected to the mainland by a bridge. This represented the world of enlightenment separated from the world of man. The bridges were frequently arched and coated with bright red lacquer (another Chinese influence).

Courtyard, an enclosed area surrounded by buildings, is an open sky space that both creates a sense of privacy and promotes a form of gathering for various purposes. Through centuries of evolvement and development, courtyard has flourished from different cultures and thrived in various forms. One may wonder, when and where did courtyard emerge? How and why have it made its mark on architectural history? Dating back to ca. 6000 BC, when courtyard made its first appearance in Jordan Valley, between Israel and the West Bank, courts have become widely used in Islamic regions especially in the mosques. Fifty centuries later, at a distant location on earth, a distinct type of courtyard architecture made its appearance and started prevailing in China. In what extent do the Chinese and Islamic courtyard differ form each other while share a degree of similarity? In the following text, two examples from the two cultures will be compared and contrasted to explicate the two typologies. The Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia and the Forbidden City in China, although from two distinct cultures with no

As a traditional city in China, Shanghai paid much attention to the etiquette and custom when people met together in the old days. At that time, people must make a bow with hands folded in front, worship on bended knees or pay respects to the others according to their social status. Worship on bended knees is a posture to show compliment to others, in order to symbolize the rating of