跨文化交际 中美友谊观.doc

Differences between Chinese and American on pattern of friendship People from Chinese culture and American culture both need friendship in their lives, which is established in different interactions with others in offices, social activities, schools, communities and so on. However, the meaning of word “friend”, the involvement in the friendship, the maintainance of friendship and the expectations of friends are remarkably distinctive between these two cultures.Chinese has quite clear definition of friend and friendship. They establish friendships with likeminded friends whom they affectively bond to or those who share the similar personalities, otherwise, they can not be real friends but just acquaintances. However, for the America, the meaning of “friend” is board, including everyone from causal acquaintance to a best friend. Chinese involve deeply and affectively in friendship. For one thing, Chinese like enclosing a lot of things to their friends range from age to the conflict with a person, therefore, Chinese share plentiful aspects of their good friends lives and they are quite familiar with each other. To Chinese people, the more secrets they know about each other, the closer their relationship is. A Chinese may angry with her good friend if she notes that her good friend conceals something from her because she will think she dose not play an important role in her friends life. For another thing, the process of establishing friendship is quite the opposite of that of Americans. Chinese are inclined to be reserved and shy when they meet strangers and the relation begins with less intimacy, however, their inner line of defense gradually decrease and they become much closer after they get alone with each other for a period of time. That is not only because they do not take privacy seriously but also because most Chinese prefer to be with others rather than stay alone , which helps their relationship to go deeper. When they want to do something or go somewhere, they will ask their friends to join them. For instance, in colleges , roommates usually go to school together, have meals together, or even go to toilet together during the break( especially among girls), as a result, they have a lot of time to improve their friendships. In contrast, American friendship just “walks on surface”. Americans make friends in different circles. An Americans probably have a lot of friends at any one time, but their friendship is usually linked to specified activities. He may have work friends, leisure activity (like golfing, swimming, shopping playing cards and so forth) friends and neighborhood friends. Ones friend from a certain circle may know little about his other aspects of life. For example, two friends who made have known each other for a long time since they made acquaintance in a football club and tall about football games, football stars and so on, may know little about each others family. They tend not to share all aspects of life with their friends. In addition, friendliness is not always an offer of friendship. Americans are initially very friendly and the inner line of defense is very low at the beginning, but it is not easy for them to develop that friendliness into the stage of a good friendship and the level of intimacy does not change a lot over time before reaching the stage of being good friends because Americans put great emphasis on privacy and they are unwilling to reveal their personal information including salary, age, family. That means the topic between two friends who do not know each other for a long time are very superficial and ordinary, for example, they may talk about food, movie or what they enjoy doing during leisure time, which set barriers to deepen the degree of familiarity .If their privacy is violated, their friendship may develop unsmoothly. Another reason is that Americans are very independent. They do not need friends to keep them company all the time and the time they spend together is not so much. As to the maintainance of friendship, people in China hope their friendship to be solid, stable and longlasting. Owing to nostalgia, Chineses national characteristic, Chinese like spending time with old friends instead of new acquaintances and they will not allow the friendship that they cherish a lot to wither and die. Take my father as an example, he moved to downtown from the village where he was born and spent his childhood in his twenties, but he has been going to his hometown frequently to hang out with his buddies with whom he grew up with. Recently, he decided to buy a land to build a house in his hometown, so that he can interact with his friends constantly. Secondly, as interdependent selforganization plays a predominant role in Chinese society, Chinese insist that friends should regularly have contact and always take care of each other once friendship is established. For them, a true friendship is a relationship that endures through changes and trail in lives. On the contrary, for American, friendship is vulnerable, unstable and shortlived. “Americans view change as a part of life; Americans think it is quite important for progress”, so meeting new friends is wellworth doing for them and they enjoy making friends, but on the other hand , their friendships are usually tied to specific circumstances or activities and will gradually change over the years when circumstance and activities change. Even ones best friends may change several times as time goes by. Another crucial factor contributes to the vulnerability and unstableness is the high mobility in America. Data released by American government show that seventeen percents of Americans move from a place to another place each year and they move every five years on average. One may be born in one city, and go to school in another .He may finish his middle school education in two or three cities and attend a college far across the country. And when he has entered business, he may possibly move from a job to a job to move up to a higher position and better wages, a phenomenon that prevails across the United States. As we know, friendship, like other human relationships, depends on frequent interaction with the other person. Thus, when one individual move away and do not interact regularly, their friendship is likely to disappear. The expectation of a friend is also different between Chinese and Americans because of different ways of building and maintaining friendship. Chinese friendship involves deep obligations and commitment. One has enormous responsibility for his friends and it is difficult for him to refuse his friends requirement. Chinese friends give each other much more concrete help and assistance than Westerners do. They put great emphasis on mutual help and emotional support between friends, for them “a friend in need is a friend indeed”. A typical example is that one will give financial support to his friend who is short of money, which rarely happens among Americans because they think it leads to dependence of one person on the other and it goes against the principle of equality. A phenomenon reflecting that Chinese take friends obligation and help for granted is that they do not usually use polite forms when they turn to their friends for help or want their friends to do something for them. Instead of saying “Help me to close the window, please”, they are more likely to say “Close the window”. But for Americans, the duties and obligations of friends are limited. In the United States, one can certainly ask a friend to do something with him such as having dinner together, but he could not expect a friend to recognize and response to his wishes without stating them. Nor could he expect a friend to drop his own business to response to a nonurgent need. In fact, Americans neither impose too much requirements on their friends nor ask their friends for practical help again and again when they are in troubles because they do not want to become their friends burden, even though they accept their friends help, they do not take what their friends do for them for granted. That is why Americans apologize to their friends for minor inconveniences such as telephoning late at night. Even in close friendship, Americans use polite forms such as “could you” and “would you mind” The reason behind this is that, equality is an important value for American , so they