YU1
Yu,Cao
English 1A
Profeor Emrys- person
2 December 2011
The Socio-Cultural Conflict between New and Traditional Asian-American
I have been living in America for almost a year; the top socio-culture conflict relevant to me are between new Chinese-American and traditional Chinese-American culture.Many Chinese friends often complain that it is difficult to live in the traditional family because there are too many invisible rites and ethical standards to follow at.“Tiger Mother” is one of the well-known examples in US, which display the typical life style of traditional Chinese family.For thousands of years, Chinese lived in a comparative stable and unchanged life, so they also act and think in traditional ways.Though Chinese people‟s lives have changed a lot since the open and reformed policy, many people‟s values towards life stay the same in various aspects.Even though New Chinese-America and traditional Chinese-American are geographically lived together, there are many cultures different between them due to distinctive life style and policy.The new generations who are growing up in the US have diverse moral, ethics as well as attitudes in life.The disparate social structure between modern and traditional creates many culture conflict at home and society.The eay is mainly focusing at comparison of the different families and works aspects in new and old Chinese-American, and the fundamental philosophy behind the culture iues, as well as offers a practical solution in the future.
First, New and traditional Chinese-American hold different attitudes towards work.
Modern Chinese believe that work is one of sources of happine.Prof Xu, Hao, director of social psychology and disability research Centre of Tsinghua University, did a research on what makes people happy, and he concluded that paion and enthusiasm in work are the main factors that
make people happy.He found that if a young man is out of his favorable work, his poibility of suicide rates maybe 40 times as larger as those who are not.Most of the New Chinese-American has a shine educational background; For example, most of them hold a degree or MBA from top universities in the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley; however 80% of them rather choose some interesting but lower salaries jobs than the high paid but boring work.In the contrary, traditional Chinese-American holds a separate view on work.Money is always the Priority of selecting a job, as well as some other factors below: secondly, whether the job is a decent one; thirdly, whether the salary is satisfied.In a survey, 36.73% people work for raising the family, 23.64% aim at having a high quality life style, and only 12.87% endeavor to realize their personal value.It shows that most of traditional Chinese American still struggling for rich life rather than the enjoyment of working.Because of the distinctive attitudes and perspectives of working, many problems also create in the Chinese-American family; such as family violence, divorce, and fight.In the paragraph four I will indicate the foundation two cultures.
Second, the two parties view on the family values is slightly similar to each other due to both of them believing all happy families resemble each other.Tolstoy once wrote, while unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way.That is to say, both New and traditional parties think happine of the family is true and most enormous happine.The traditional concept of the
family still takes deeper root in New Chinese-American.In accordance with a survey, nine out of them people believe that their families are the eential and enduring part of their life, which is a reliable means of resisting the preure and threats from the society, culture and career.Besides, new group laid stre on the harmonizing atmosphere of a family.Even between the husband and the wife, father and children, sisters and brothers, they will perform themselves as well-manner as poible.It defies traditional group‟s understanding that we can hear the wife say “thank you” to
her husband, or the older sister say “sorry” to her younger brother and the father say “forgive me, please” to his daughter, though they have lived together for a long time.On the other hand, the principle and value of family of traditional group may be the strongest in the world.As for Chinese, a harmonious, large family is considered to be a bleing.It is highly related to the
feudal society and Confucianism, which is the fundamental root in Asian culture.According to an Internet survey, more than 60% people think families are the most reliable people in the world, and 78.8% people hold the view that bleedne family is the biggest happine in their life.Most women in the countryside spend most of their time and energy on their family.They seldom have their own interests, only their eldership and children in their hearts.In the cities, family is also important.When festivals come, especially the Spring Festival, sons and daughters, who work far from home, will go home and reunite with their parents, with a lot of presents bought for their families.Obviously, family is a top thing traditional group would rather sacrifice almost everything to support and protect.
There are many similar culture significance problems for Chinese-American in US, which are also happened in the other country as well because ultimate culture aimilation or harmony would take several generations to achieve.In US, the majority communications, which contain the usual way of living, are the eldership in the family.On the other side, the youth, who have formal education from the western country, represent the key role of reformist; therefore, most of the conflicts often occur in the normal family daily life.Western scholars always argue that the
reason cause Chinese people different than white are because of Communism, which I think it is the funniest joke in my life.Both Communism and Capitalism are games that played by policies, also the perfect excuse used to attack each other; moreover, Communism or Marxism only used by Chinese central government since 1949, but Chinese culture is already existing for over 4000
years.Certainly, there must be something else that rules traditional Chinese‟s social behavior, moral virtue, as well as ethics.Confucian is the real reason behind politic, which is also largely influencing Asian countries.Confucian is the foundation of Chinese philosophy, and it has been existed for 4200 years, which is also deeply rooted in Chinese culture DNA.Most of the time, Chinese people do not even realize that they are acting or thinking of Confucian.One of the famous core principles that Confucianism promoted is “Three Bonds”.The Three bonds delineated the authority of the dominator over the minister, the father over children, and the husband over wife.Wei-Ming Tu, the director of Harvard- Yenching Institute, describes in his speech “Probing the „Three Bonds‟ in Confucian Humanism, are based on
dominance/subservience underscore hierarchical relationships as inviolable principles for
maintaining social harmony.” Three bonds are only one of the theories inside Confucian by using to promote social stability; however, Confucian as Chinese‟s soul not only recommends for all citizens but also required for over 3000 years.
As the young generation, I am strongly supporting the new way of life because I was one of the victims from the traditional style because I had wasted over 10 years in my life to make my family happy rather than to live as myself.Since the first day I came to use, I can feel that power from the society because everyone could stands up to fight for their own life.In the end, I believe that in the short term, socio-culture conflict between New and Traditional Asian-American will still go on in our society because it takes time and steps; however, in the long term, countries and culture aimilation will undoubtedly achieve in the future.
