Some Cultural Differences
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Transcript of 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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Differences in Dietary Habit
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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Differences in Dietary Habit
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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Differences in Dietary Habit
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.