Chinese Culture Vs American Culture

In many of the readings we have explored in class about Chinese culture have many similarities and differences with my experience of American culture. For example, the way businesses are ran, are different. There is no such thing as suing in China. Also people's jobs are set in stone so China doesn’t have as hard working citizens. In both cultures I think the mixing of age groups is similar. Something I think is really different, is how people in China seem to receive an equal pay as their associates. In America some people (who might be doing less work) receive much more pay. In this essay I will be explaining these ideas. I think the most obvious difference is how businesses are run. In Chinese culture (before Westernization) there was no sort of “suing”. The company came first and was at highest priority. If you didn’t like something you bought, too bad. You had to live with it you couldn’t just sue someone. Contrasting that, in America, suing is very common, especially as a threat. Businesses have to always watch out if they do something even a little wrong. Chinese workers also have their jobs set in stone, you really can’t be fired,
so people might slack on their jobs. We see this in Chen Kaige’s “Together”. The dad had to yell to have the attention of the hotel attendant. Also in “When Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” by Ha Jin, Hongwen was talking to his father about how his father went to work for an “8 hour break”. Now Hongwen actually had to work at his job and that was never the way before. In America, people don’t have their jobs set in stone, people are fired and laid off all the time. So you have to work really hard and show loyalty to the company. That is the only way you can really keep a job. Another difference between the two cultures is how in Chinese workers get paid more equally, some definitely get paid less, but for the most part pretty equal.
In America, however, the people on top, even if they do less work, get paid way more. In “When Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” by Ha Jin, we see that when the manager of the restaurant much more the amount of money than the rest of the workers, they were completely astonished. In America, however, top CEOs (in 2013) made up to 296 times the amount other workers in their industry made. Almost everybody in America is aware that the people on top make a ridiculous amount compared to the rest of us. And very few are mad about it, simply because they hope someday they will be the CEO. In Ha Jin’s story, Peter was paid about 30 times more than the workers and they were
furious. A similarity between Chinese and American cultures is that the mixing between age groups is minimal. In “My Old Home” by Lu Hsun, the narrator is returning to home after 20 years and still remembers his neighbors, but not extremely well. I think that this shows as a kid he talked to them, and had childhood friends of his own, but most of the people in his village he didn’t really talk to. I think that this has a lot of similarity with American culture, most people don't talk to people outside of their age group. I think that this is one way I am different from most people my age, and have actually been made fun of for, I tend to talk well with adults. I do still make friends with other teens but most kids really only talk to other kids.