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1、1 The Deep Underlying Structure Of Culture Cindy Zhang Chinese think polite should be applied in every occasion, but do you know sometimes the good manner will get you a counter result? You will feel unhappy and unsatisfy with your western friends cheeseparing when he gives you a small part of the b
2、irthday cake according to your will, because you are try to polite to ask for a small one when he inquires you how big size one you want, but actually the result is in your counter will. Western peoples comm unicative way is easier and simpler, compare with Chinese complex communication manner. Chin
3、ese people try to say the proper word in the proper situation, in some degree, it works. But when the cross culture happen, this customs will become the difficulty for Chinese to understand foreigners thought, and this is culture difference and cultural reality. You have your first trip to India and
4、 want to shake hands with an Indian by your left hand, you will get the supercilious look and unwelcome there. Why so odd? You just want to show your friendly, but actually you against the Indian culture. And this kind of intercultural communication problem you might have when meeting foreigner due
5、to the culture difference and cultural reality. From the time you born on the earth, you will be taught to abide the culture which your ancestors created, actually you dont understand what it is even though you act like that, all you have known is that its called culture. Culture which seems invisib
6、le but always around our daily life and affect our whole life has it s deep structure and roots. The sources of how a culture views the world can be found in its deep underlying structureworldview 、family 、 history. 1 ) Worldview What people do is designed by how they think and view in this world ，a
7、nd ones world view will influence all aspects of our perception and consequently affects our belief and value system as well as how we think. In some countries, men are considered as king and they have the sovereign rights. For example, in Korea, when men are having supper, women must sit aside and
8、could not eating anything unless their men have finished, and if the men say “Yes”, they could not say ”No ”. Maybe we think this is unfair for women, but actually the women in Korea are please to do that. In their worldview, they think that s right and nature and that s their lives. Worldview is a
9、culture s orientation toward God, humanity, nature, questions of existence, the universe and cosmos, life, death, sickness, and other philosophical issues that influence how its members perceive their world. Christian believe in that god is the one who created people, but Buddhist think Nu Wa gave b
10、irth to human. Worldview has transmitted from generation to generation and plants a deep root in the offspring. Some people will eat censer burning ash to cure their sickness instead of seeing doctor, because they are taught to use this method when they are born in this world, they construct this wo
11、rld view when they are start to learn the world, and its in this belief that immortals dominate their mind、life、death 、sickness and so on. Religion is one kind of worldview dominates peoples thought and act. Christian believe in God and Jesus Lord, they believe strongly in organized worship as a mea
12、ns of proclaiming Gods message, so they go to church every Sunday morning and have timing preaching in church or in other place. Buddhist will burn joss sticks to their immortals and make a vow to the immortals. Chinese will fire “yizhi ” to pay respect to ancestors and household gods during the imp
13、ortant festival. As time pass, all these activities become the culture in its society and pass on from generation to generation and religion become the world view deepening peoples thought. The other way round, religion as one kind of peoples worldview let the people become the members of the societ
14、y and share the same culture. Christian enjoy the pleasure which the God bestow to them, as members of their world, they share food 、 feeling、especially the everywhere God power which is encouraging them when 2 they are upset, leading them toward the luciferous way when facing the choices, curing th
15、eir mind. God become part of their lives, religion become their whole world view, and the activities become their culture and are transferred from generation to generation. 2) Family We do and judge things by our worldviews, but where are our worldviews come from? Families, our first caretaker of ba
16、sic information which we need, transfer the culture to us and are our first teachers to teach us our historical background 、manners and behaviors 、customs 、 tradition and language. We first experience of love 、of hate 、of forgiving、of sadness in our families. Then families members tell us what s rig
17、ht, what we should do, how to handle with things, who give us power, who blessing us (God or ancestors) and so on. Gradually, we cultivate habits and set up our worldviews. In some degree, we will have our believes, but these believes are copied from families. In the Arab world, children learn that
18、God controls them and must be listened to. In Unite States, children are taught to learn and think independence, they are learned to judge things and choose their own lives when they are just little boys. We know family is the most directly way to convey messages to the children and its first functi
19、on is to educate the young. But whats the standard for the family members to educate the children? They do it according to the way they were educated and convey the past experience they ve got to the children. In most Asian countries, people respect elders, there s a belief that only the older peopl
20、e who have lived in the past know everything and the value of life, so the young should listen to the old. A child lives in Chinese family is educated that to respect the older is vi rtue and they must abide the adults admonitions. In the Unite States, children are taught to think and figure out the
21、 “truth ” independent because their parents have received the same notion when they were young. And the second function of family is to transfer the value and initiate the young into culture. Under capitalism, people are most concern with money and self-interest, and they believe in individualism; b
22、ut people in the socialism believe in collectivism, concerning with the public interest. All these views will be transferred to the young by family members who are also infused by their families under the same social system and culture. Holding with these views, the young are gradually aware of what
23、 society they are living in and understand the culture of their society. But the most important function of family is that the young can identify themselves from their families and construct their worldviews. Your family members will tell you your historical background, your different roles in the f
24、amily、in school、in the public, how to get along with different people and so on. Finally you will figure out who you are and have your own mind and believes. Human being build up families, families build up society, and peoples world view and activities become social culture, affecting the whole hum
25、an history. 3) History Human create history by their hand, and their history give the evidence to their generation about their lives and culture, teaching them to abide and take part in the culture When the moment people born on the earth, their history start. And as one great production of human-cu
26、lture is also developing and blooming in human history. The Korea tea culture. From the time of the Shilla Kingdom to the Kory? and Chos?n Dynasties, tea was drunk by all classes of people: royalty, aristocrats, literati, monks, soldiers and commoners, However, the literati were the class that nurtu
27、red and developed the tea ceremony. Ted flourishing tea culture of the literati peaked from the 12th century and this trend has been passed on. Today tea drinkers can be found among scholars, artists and social leaders who study not only the methods of tea preparation but also the classical tea lite
28、rature of their ancestors. During the Kory? and Chos?n Dynasties, the Office of the Inspector General held regular tea ceremonies. They considered the tea ceremony important because it was influenced by Confucian 3 philosophy. They drank tea regularly in an effort to promote fairness and honesty, an
29、d Korea boasts many government officials whose fair and wise administrative practices were at least partly attributable to their adherence to the Confucian principles underlying the tea ceremony. So tea culture takes up a very important role in Korea after a long and tardily history. And it s this h
30、istory tell their generation that tea ceremony is their culture which they should follow、study and develop. People absorb their countries culture and add their works into it. Socrates, Greek teacher of wisdom, is represented as believing that virtue is knowledge, in his opinion, all wickedness is du
31、e to ignorance. And his royalty fans Plato learnt it 、 absorb it and created a new trend on philosophy - Plato philosophical school. It is a great progress of human philosophical history, and after Plato, many great philosophers born on the philosophical world to color and create history. In the int
32、eractional procedure of historical lessons and human creation, human culture goes on and on, blooming in every new phase, and through this procedure, the young can learnt and act their culture. Conclusion History tells you what kind of culture your ancestors left to you, your family members teach yo
33、u what they ve known about the culture which came from their families. After learning the cultural knowledge, you set up your world view, then you will act to this world and make great efforts to develop culture in your history. And when two people who have different historical background and different worldview meet, the culture difference and cultural reality incurs.