ESL21B

07/06/2007

Essay #1 draft #2

In the world, there are a lot of countries. Every country has their own values and assumptions. Some thinking or behavior could be desirable in this country, but against others countriesAwkward. {***}ChoppyThere are some culturally differences in my country Taiwan, such as totalitarianism, peace, and ceremonialism.

One value{***}Conj/Trans is different from my country with others is totalitarianism. In Chinese, we do believe that unity could make incredible power. Although some people are not strong, they can mass their power together. Moreover, Chinese believe that it will be faster if there are more people doing a project. That is why you can see that we still living with parent although we already married, because we want to mass our power of family. We think that the family members have responsibilities in this family, and we need to do what we can do for our family. By the way, I think the differences of values make some undesirableAwkward between Chinese with American. As you know, Americans devoteVForm individualism. They might think Chinese isS/VAgreement weak because they live with their family. According to the article "American Values and Assumptions", which appeared on New Direction, the writer described how the Americans devote individualism, and they will consider somebody is weak because they are not independent and live with their family. For example, my American classmate ask me about how was my life when I was in Taiwan. I described that I was living with my family and how was our life like. After that, he called me chicken, and I was very angry. So, the different culture will bring something wrong or undersirable.

Another value {***}Conj/Transis different from my country with others is peace. As you knowCut, we have big numbers familyAwkward member because of totalitarianism, so peace is very important for us. If we do not have peace in a family, it could make whole of family broken, because how could a family live in arguments everyday! As you knowCut, Chinese love peace. We believe that if we have peace, we can make our family more powerful and strong. You can say that the totalitarianism makes us peaceWForm, or peace makes our totalitarianismWForm. They are like twins. However, the differences of values make some undesirableAwkward between Chinese with American. Americans like to compete each other. They think any of them are unique, and they want to prove how unique they are, so they want to win as they can. In contrast, Chinese will consider that willConj/Trans winning effect their peaceful life? So, sometimes they will give up toPreposition compete and to winWForm. Based on the article "American Values and Assumptions", which appeared on New Direction, the writer explained how Americans compare each other in everything such as smarter, richer, or better looking. Therefore, American might think that Chinese is unvaluable, because they do not know what competition is.

Another different value in my country is ceremonialism. In Chinese customSing/Plu, ceremony is very important social skill. We will observe their talking of ceremony when people are doing social activity. If somebody does not know what the ceremony {***}MissingW, people will not happy talkAwkward to them and believe what they are talkingWChoice. Furthermore, Chinese think we can discover your life experience from you talking. If some of people do not have ceremony, we might consider they do not have social experience, so you do not know how to talk in right way. For example, my own experience, after I got AA degree in Taiwan, I went to job interview. I met a person who went there for interview also. When a manager asked him some question, he answered it very unpolitely, and he did not get that job finally. However, the manager told me that he could notice that that person doesn't have any social skill, how can he let him to get this job, because he could mess up their fame of company. So, to be polite is very important for Chinese. According to the article "American Values and Assumptions", which appeared on New Direction, the writer mentioned about informality in American culture. Americans like casual style. They think casual could bring friendly manner, so their talking is very informal. Therefore, Chinese will think they do not respect them. For example, the first day when I came to America, somebody wants to bring lighter from me. He said, "hey dog, could I borrow your lighter?" I was very angry because the word "dog". I was thinking about how could he call me dog, and I did not lend him my lighter. After my friend explained me in couple days later, I realized that it was not about bad words.

In conclusion, we know that the world is changing day by day. There is a lot of countries in the world. When we have to communicate by peoples to peoples, we need to consider what the culture and values different. Anyway, when you are talking to Chinese, totalitarianism, peace, and ceremonialism are three major topic that you need to consider about.