Some Cultural Differences

7/28/2019 Some Cultural Differences

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Some Cultural Differences BetweenWestern and Eastern Society

Gatot Subroto, SS., M.Pd.


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A culture is a way of life of a group of people

behaviours, beliefs, values, etc. that they

accept and that are passed along by

communication and imitation from one

generation to the next.

If we want to know about someone who comes

from another country we need to know his/her

culture. By knowing his/her culture we can alsoknow how his/her personality is.


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Knowing where host country behavior is

coming from does not mean that you have to

like or accept it, but it should mean that you areno longer surprised by it and that is a

considerable step toward successful

interaction.

Once you accept that people behave the way

they do for a reason, you can go beyond simplyreacting to that behavior and figure out how to

work with it.


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CulturalDifferences

Differences in

Communication

Differences in Festival

Differences in Dietary

Habit


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Differences in Communication

Eastern and Western society have its own

habit in greeting someone. If the Easternspeakers do not understand the low-context

system used in the Western society or vice

versa, misunderstanding will occurs. For

example, the Eastern speaker often greet

each other like this when they meet, Have

you had your dinner? or Where are you

going? and so on. But the Western speakersonly say Good morning, afternoon or

evening! or they only say Hello! to each

other when they meet.

1. Greeting


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If you say Have you had dinner? to Englishspeakers, they may think that you want to

invite them to have dinner with you. If you

greet an American by asking him or her

Where are you going? the American might

feel very uncomfortable because asking such

questions could be interpreted as an invasion

of their privacy. But in the Eastern society,these are appropriate greeting which do not

invade the otherpersons privacy.

1. Greeting


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In Eastern country, such as China, studentscall the teacher Teacher Li. But in the

Western country, this form of address is

unimaginable. They usually call teachers by

saying Mr., Sir, Mrs. or Miss plus their

surname. In fact, teacher is only kind of

occupation in Western country, but in China is

not only a kind of occupation, it also showsrespect to others especially teachers.

2. Form of address


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In the Eastern society, when people doconversation or communication to each other,

they always talk about the marriage, the

income, the age and the address. But in the

Western society, such topics belong to theirprivacy and taboo to them. When they

converse with others they do not talk about

such topics, they always talk about weather,

traffic, sport, health, hobby the program on TV

or the football matches and so on.

3. Conversations topic


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So when we, as Eastern people, makeconversation with Western people, we should

avoid asking the following questions because

these questions are rude for them:

Where do you come from? How much do you earn?

How many children do you have?

Are you married? and so on

3. Conversations topic


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Western and Eastern societies give and

receive compliment differently. It is virtuous

for the Eastern society to show modest when

they are given compliments. For example,

when someone says Your handwriting isvery good, the answer would be No, no just

say so. It is different in the Western society.

When they are given compliment they always

show their pleasure. For example, ifsomeone says Thats a beautiful dress you

have on, the answer always Thanks orIts

very nice of you to say so.

4. Compliments and thanks


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Differences in Festival

There are many festival differences between

the Western and Eastern countries. Like inthe Eastern country such as in China, there

are many festivals Spring Festival, the

Dragon Boat Festival, Lantern Festival, Mid-

Autumn Day, Tomb-Sweeping Day, etc. In the

Western country such as United Stated of

America, there are different festivals such as

Carnival, Easter Day, Thanksgiving Day,Christmas Day, and so on. It shows that

every country has its own different social

customs and cultures.


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Differences in Dietary Habit

The ways Western and Eastern people eat,that is the table manner, really different. The

reason for that is probably because of the

different dining tools and menus. The main

difference between Western and Easterndietary habits is unlike, in Western society,

everyone has their own plate of food, but in

Eastern society the dishes are placed on the

table and everybody share.


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In Western dietary habit, people start the mealwith soup or something small, then have meat

and vegetables, dessert and finally coffee. But

in Eastern dietary habit, a typical meal start

with some cold dishes and follow with main

dishes and finally soup.


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Eastern people usually grasp rice straightly

with hands or use chopsticks. The thin andlong chopsticks, especially used by Chinese

people, cannot be used to cut food, so we

usually use teeth to act as knives. They hold

their food, meat or vegetable, with the

chopstick send them to the mouth, bite off a

part of it and remain the other part on the

chopsticks. Thats the usual way for them.We are also used to hold up our bowls when

having rice or soup. Japanese hold bowls to

have miso soup without spoon.


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All these habits are considered rude for theWestern people. The etiquette in the Western

society request that when eating, bowls and

plates cannot leave the tables. Food should

be cut by knives to fit into the mouths. Ofcourse your mouth cannot touch the plates or

bowls. So the regular process is like this, you

cut your steak on the plate with fork and

knife, send the meat cube into the mouth withfork and nothing will be returned back but the

fork alone.

Documents

Some Cultural Differences