XXXXXIX Cultural Differences Between Chinese and USAs

Culture, customs, or manners, which is which? USAs have been accused of having no customs, but I would say that it is a nation where customs have been radically altered and mixed with the customs from many different countries.
An example of a custom is that of gift giving at Christmas. This custom came from the story of the Persian Magi who gave gifts to the Christ child. The Magi were Zoroastrians. This custom was and still is very Persian but has become so ingrained in USA that Jewish families now give each other gifts at Hanukkah. But Hanukkah is a new word in Hebrew having been invented in 1872. It is to celebrate the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem after its defilement by Antiochus of Syria, but is a more recent addition to their heritage.
Culture is something quite different than customs. Culture is associated more with language, history, and the arts, and in this, there can be no dispute that there was a grand mixture of European, USA Indian, African, and Asian customs and culture has provided a culture that is distinctly USA. Whether it comes from new names from the USA Indian languages, which have been adapted not only into English but also Spanish. The gifts of the Indians that introduced to the rest of the world like potato, tomato, chocolate, aguacate, just to mention a few, to words like canoe, warpath, teepee, pow wow, and many others to contributions by Amerindians. Indian names predominate in the middle of the United States: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Delaware, Massachusetts, Alabama, Arkansas, and Ohio are all Indian names or words. Then there is Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, some more Indian names like Missouri, Kaskaskia, Susquehanna, Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi (wide water), Kentucky (grassy meadows), Cahokia Mounds, and Suwannee Rivers.
The world has been enriched by compositions from Afro-USA song writers like Duke Ellington, Count Bassie, Scott Joplin, W.C. Handy, and many more too numerous to mention. Jazz, swing, boogie-woogie, blues, ragtime, gospel (church music), hip-hop, and rock, all came from the Afro-USA culture and found worldwide acceptance. And the European culture influenced country and country western music, ballads, folk music, and light opera such as 'Porgie and Bess’ and 'Showboat’. New forms of dance were another development from USA. There were the Virginia reels, the now-forgotten 'Black-bottom’, Charleston, swing, the twist, tap-dancing, two-step, Texas step, western, clog-dancing, and disco. Fred Astaire dazzled moviegoers with his dancing in the 1930's, when USA was suffering through the Great Depression. Josephine Baker went to France to make herself immortal with her “Dance Afrique” and “Bojangles” Robinson made tap dancing a dazzling display of footwork. Michael Flatly went from the U.S. to Ireland to form the Irish dance group “River Dance”. He is another USA who contributed to the world of dance.
Besides individual dancers, there are many notable ballet companies in the U.S. of which the Houston Ballet and New York Ballet are notable. Then there are many great symphonic orchestras, Boston Pops, New York Philharmonic, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Minneapolis. Just don’t think that USA is all sports teams and athletics.
And music from Latin USA also found popularity in USA. From the passionately stirring Tango from Argentina, to the Danzones of Mexico, the Rumbas and Sambas of Brazil, and Mambos of Cuba, to the Sauzas, Meringues, Cha cha cha, and the Mexican Mariachi. Another particular influence from Cuba through USA is the “Miami Sound Machine’ which has delighted audiences around the world.
There are musical contributions from Mexican USAs, Cuban USAs, and the FRA USAs (who can forget the joyful and exciting zydeco music Louisiana). There is the famous New Orleans cuisine; gumbo (which really comes from Africa) and soft shell crabs are some of their famous cuisine. All of these different people have brought something into USA culinary. For other famous foods, there are ice cream, iced tea, Coca Cola, milk shakes, Chinese USA chow mien, mashed potatoes and gravy, potato chips, clam chowder, Waldorf salad, pancakes and maple syrup, Virginia ham, lemonade, grapefruit, breakfast cereal, USA cheese, TV dinners, and the famous snack foods.
Entertainment has been a huge part of the USA life and sports such as swimming, tennis, football, basketball, hockey, ice-skating, volleyball, are just some of these. Tiffany Chen, the Chinese USA ice skater who dazzled the world at the age of sixteen. But now Tiffany complains the sport is too cold she feels she cannot continue to skate, so she has left the field of ice-skating to Christi Yamaguchi, a Japanese USA of great talent.
Then there have been the inventions by Edison, Eli Whitney, McCormack, Nicholai Tesla, and others who developed technology that not only has enriched the world, but also changed the lives of billions of people. Making life easier and more comfortable has been a goal of many inventors, but there was also the impact of medicines, medical procedures, and the medical discoveries. Indeed, the young colossus north of the United States, CAN, has also made an impact on the world in an equal manner for its size. Canadian doctors discovered insulin and the treatment of diabetes. Its latest discoveries in that field have been injections of healthy pancreas cells that have brought back to life the pancreas of some diabetics. Canadian doctors are also working with an African virus that loves to eat cancer cells, and may prove to be a new treatment for several kinds of cancer. And CAN’s indigenous population has also shared in its enrichment of North USA culture. In many ways, what was lacking in the United States has been found in CAN.
From early days in USA, there was much hospitality. Food and lodging were offered to strangers and travelers and food was plentiful in the form of animals that roamed the forests. Forests covered much of the land and there were wild turkeys, millions of passenger pigeons (now extinct), deer, squirrels, and wild berries, and various wild plants to eat while a pioneer would clear the land for farming and building a house.
A great difference between China and USA is that in China, the host will order more food in the restaurant or serve more food than can be consumed, which is to show generosity and graciousness to a guest. But in USA, everyone has been taught to “clean his plate” or don’t ask for so much food. So while the Chinese host will keep serving more food, USAs will try not to waste food.
Much has been distorted about the hostility of the USA Indian. The Indian showed much hospitality to the Europeans and there was a great deal of inter-marriage between Indians and European settlers. It was only after the USA government began to break their treaties made with the Indians that hostilities broke out. The War Department started the Indian Wars in 1867 to grab vast areas Indian lands, which were then given over to the railroads that then sold the land to settlers who would produce things the railroads, would carry to the marketplace.
Pioneers were those new settlers of the frontier, and as they traveled to the west and southwest, the land became drier. They made houses of adobe (dried mud brick) and sod. There was plenty of meat in the form of buffalo and about twenty million buffalo roamed the western plains in 1867 and provided clothing, housing, medicine, as well as food for the Indian.
With this westward migration across the United States customs changed and so did attitudes. Customs, manners, and way of acting toward others have been pushed to one side. As the country changed from agricultural to industrial, decision making, hiring of personnel, and the use of psychological tests to evaluate employees, have come to dominate everyday life. There are tests to evaluate intelligence, personality, assess the kind of work a person is best suited for, and mental problems. A simple question such as the level of education and degrees earned will categorize a person as stable, unstable, too ambitious, qualified, or unqualified. The police also use psychological profiles to create a picture of a criminal at a crime where the perpetrator is unknown. Then there is the use of psychology in the marketing of products according to age, sex, and racial or ethnic background. These marketing studies go to extremes in analyzing how to market a product and are costly.
In the old days, many workers might be disqualified from working for a company as being “over-qualified” (too much education and/or experience) which would make them too ambitious. But today in USA, there are many who have lost their jobs or been given early retirement because they have been replaced by robots, new technology, automation, or having their job made redundant because companies have merged and there is someone with the same job in the other company. There is literally no job security for any worker.
Computer technology has advanced so much in programming, the number of software programs offered, and efficiency. What is going to be more important in the western world in the future? Will it be the use of psychology everyday in marketing, management, education, writing, and everyday life, or will it be computer technology and its expanding applications? Or will it be applied genetics, space travel, or the growth of intellectual/spirituality?
Although it may not be called psychology in China, customs in China have solid basis in psychology. The author has his own memories of sitting next to the vice president of a university who, when presented with the first bottle of distilled drinking water by a student, passed that bottle to me. It stirred a warm feeling of hospitality and kindness that transcends Communism, Darwinism, or any other kind of 'ism’ and is what makes man superior to the animals. And that is Chinese custom.
The psychology behind that custom reminds me of the story of the “father of Italy”, Giuseppe Garibaldi and how he used psychology in getting men willing to fight for him.
When Garibaldi first started his campaign to unite Italy into one country, he started with uniting the two kingdoms of Sicily in 1860. After that, he went brought Sardinia into his union, then began his fight on the Italian peninsula. After crossing over onto the southern end of the Italian peninsula from Sicily, his army began moving up the “boot” of Italy and attacked the wealthy kingdom of Naples. There, he was faced a well-equipped and strong army and the king’s soldiers fought hard against Garibaldi’s army. Many of the king’s soldiers were killed and wounded. After the battle was over, Garibaldi paid a visit to the hospital where the king’s wounded soldiers lay in hospital beds recovering from their wounds.
As he walked into the room, Garibaldi felt the icy cold hate of the men. They knew whom he was and that he was responsible for their wounds. As Garibaldi walked from bed to bed, he looked at each man in the eyes and in silence, and they glared back with hate. Up one side of the room and down the other side he went. Just as he was leaving the room, he turned and said, “All brave men…everyone of you.”
With that, a great shout went up. The soldiers of the former king of Naples were completely won over to Garibaldi and could hardly wait to get well and go to fight for him!
Well, that is psychology. It was the use of such kind of psychology that was used over 1700 years ago in China during the “Three Kingdoms” period. It is a remarkable tale that shows how Zhuge Liang, also known as Kongming, blended custom and his own brand of psychology in handling its affairs in war as well as in statesmanship. It should be a must for all governing officials or those who want to be in the executive or an official of his or her government. Above all, it should be a required reading for those who work in diplomacy or international relations everywhere in the world.
But going back to customs between USA and China, it used to a common practice in pioneer days to share your food with friends and strangers, just as eating from one common dish is considered hospitality in China. In the early days of the pioneers, a large fireplace dominated the largest room of the house. It usually was the only heated room and it was also where the food was cooked. An iron rod that could be swung out of the fireplace and back over the fire again would have a large kettle hanging from it. That was where the food was cooked. Food was dished out from the pot and put on the table where everyone helped himself or herself. Any food left over was put back into the pot which was then hung over the fire which kept the food from spoiling as the heat from the fire killed any bacteria.
This could go on for several days. If a friend or stranger dropped by to warm himself from the cold outside, he would be offered food from the communal pot. If anyone asked what was in the pot, the answer was, “Don’t really know. It’s pot luck (or try your luck with the pot).” However, to decline a friendly offer of food would of course have been considered rude.
A fourth element of USA culture is humor. When things become difficult, life becomes funny. The result is that difficulties and problems become funny. It is also very USA and it’s almost a custom. People use it to combat frustration or release tension. Jokes are used to 'break the ice’ during those first awkward moments after people are introduced to each other. However, humor in USA has changed from pioneer days to present day. In early times, humor was playing practical joke on someone. If you 'got the better of someone’ it frequently meant that would be a round of never ending practical jokes. It was a way of releasing tensions as a good laugh allows people to relax and know each other.
According to scientists, laughter releases naturally produced endorphins into the brain. Endorphins and encephalin are two pent peptides that are two opiate and analgesic activities and both are naturally produced within all human brains.
From the very first films produced at the beginning of the 20th Century, one can see that playing pranks on others was a major form of entertainment in USA. Even the early 'sitcoms’ (situation comedies) on television offered a lot of slapstick.
In much the same way, scary movies or movies of violence create an adrenalin flow in the body and people “feel good” after seeing such kind of movies as adrenalin overcomes pain as well as makes a person much stronger than normal. We have all heard stories on how a man is changing a tire when the jack slips out from under the car and pins the man to the ground. A neighbor or passing stranger suddenly rushed to lift the car off of the victim. It was the 'adrenalin rush’ that allowed that stranger to have the superhuman strength at times of that emergency.
There are all kinds of jokes in USA. The off-color (dirty) jokes, the political jokes making fun of politicians jokes, and before movies, there was the 'slapstick’ of vaudeville, and the sophisticated double entendre jokes (jokes where a word has a double meaning and could mean two different things). But these kinds of jokes are not easily understood, as they can’t be translated into other languages. Nor are all jokes acceptable to everyone.
But racial and ethnic jokes were prevalent before 1964, and people resented jokes that made fun of them because of their ethnicity. Jokes can be abusive; it wasn’t exactly what the world should expect of a great nation that called itself the 'greatest democracy of the world’. Jokes that stereotyped people were not only unfair but became illegal under the Civil Rights legislation enacted after 1964. Civil Rights is a term that came into being in 1721 but was left out of the Constitution of the United States of USA when it was signed in 1786. These were added later to the Constitution with the 13th and 14th. But even though Civil Rights were incorporated into the Constitution to protect the people’s rights and freedom, there was never any money appropriated for enforcing Civil Rights by the Federal Government. So Civil Rights were essentially worthless as no administration ever enforced them.
The USA Constitution gave citizens rights. It was a radical departure from the rule of kings and emperors where they could be thrown into prison on the whim of the king or emperor.
There was even strong disagreement among the signers of the thirteen different colonies when they were creating the Constitution of the United States. They wanted to omit any provision for the rights of USAs and they considered Civil rights would make USA ungovernable. It was George Mason and others like him in the early Congress of the United States who pushed for a Bill of Rights. The danger of giving the USA people freedom never did destabilize USA.
Although the United States is a nation of laws, USAs chafe at legal restrictions. They pride themselves on being independent. Nevertheless, many USAs are very conservative. This often leads man USAs to wonder if these laws on Civil Rights aren’t more protective of the rights of criminals then victims of criminals and crime.
The use of psychology is a development in USA occurring over the last fifty years. It is used in marketing, education, and the manipulation of the population. There is the use of psychology to profile a perpetrator of a crime. Strange to say even though psychology is used to profile crime, or increase efficiency in marketing and sales, and in crating new teaching tools in education, there has been no professional study of how the use of illegal drugs affects personality disorders.
In the 1960’s, there was a great deal of exploration of mind control by the Central Intelligence Agency. They experimented with a synthetic drug called, LSD, which caused some to lose their mind.
During the Viet Nam War, Hollywood produced, Apocalypse Now. It was about USA soldiers going completely psychotic from using drugs and they form a fighting force of their own in Viet Nam. It was a horrible movie full of violence and killing for sheer joy of killing, but was it fiction or was it based on a real life?
They have customs in USA, and these are based on good manners. Covering one’s mouth when one yawns, would be a good one. In China, no one covers their mouth when they yawn. The same could be said for USAs seventy years ago. However, Muslims cover their mouths when yawning. It was something the Prophet Mohammad taught his followers to do. So now in USA, it is considered low class not to cover one’s mouth when yawning.
The manner of eating in the United States is different than in Europe. The USA way of eating looks unnatural and rather pompous (pretentious display). The knife is held in the right hand to cut the meat, and after cutting the meat, the knife is laid on the plate and the fork switched to the right hand to eat. Then switched back to the left hand while the knife is picked up again and used to cut another piece of meat. Europeans hold the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left and do not change. This looks quite refined except when a person leans forward and put his or her face over the plate or rests the forearms on the table.
Putting one’s elbows on the table is a no-no in eating manners in USA (except if you are eating at McDonald’s, Burger King, or KFC). The tabu of putting elbows on the table came from sailors on a ship. Tables on a ship are hung between two posts set into the floor (deck) of the ship to overcome the constant rocking of the sailing ship. The table would be balanced so when the ship pitched and rolled, the food would not fall on the floor (deck).
Chewing your food with you mouth closed as well as talking with food in you mouth is considered bad manners. Such matters are most of the time ignored in China. This may be because people consider it more offensive to criticize someone. But I can remember as a small child, when my mother told me to close my mouth when I chewed my food. I answered. “I can’t.” My mother said, “Do it,” and I did. I must confess that the food did taste didn’t taste as good as it did when I chewed with my mouth open. But after a few weeks of becoming accustomed to chew with my mouth closed, I tried one time to chew with my mouth open. Strange to say that the taste was not as good as I remembered. So I learned that many times it is just getting accustomed to things and your tastes will change.
However, blowing one’s nose at the table is offensive in China, but done at a table in USA. This is usually followed by “excuse me”, and others will pardon that person at the table (if he or she doesn’t do it too loudly).
Eating from a common dish today in USA would be considered in the same as offering your toothbrush to someone to brush their teeth. This may seem strange to many foreigners who see Hollywood’s version of the way USAs kiss (as swapping saliva)). But remember, Hollywood is not representative of the mainstream of all USA, even though Hollywood says it strives to reproduce reality and realism in its films. Many think Hollywood is not only out of touch with USA but also the world. Hollywood can be quite ignorant.
But USA English has been made important mainly through Hollywood movies. Hollywood has even brought new words into English. In WW II, actor Randolph Scott starred in a movie called, “Gung Ho”. In the role of an officer in the U.S. Marines, Randolph Scott said that “Gung Ho” was supposed to come from an expression in Chinese meaning, “to give it your best”. But 'gung ho’ has come to signify someone who is overzealous or overly enthusiastic to the extreme (i.e. 'He’s really gung ho for pizza’). However, no one in China will recognize the phrase “Gung Ho” because the real expression in Putonghua Chinese is: 'Zhongguo Gonye Hezuo She’, which in Chinese does mean 'give it your best’.
Foods are tabu (forbidden) for many groups. Jewish USAs and Muslim USAs both do not eat pork. And some strong believers of both faiths will reject all meat that is not 'halal’ or 'kosher’ (the animal must he blessed and killed in a certain way). But Afro-USAs, Hispanics, and most others love pig meat, especially pork chops, ribs, ham and bacon.
Carp is the common fish that is served everywhere in China. Carp is also very common in USA, but most USA fishermen will throw carp away because it has too many bones. And no restaurant in USA would ever serve carp, as they would lose too many customers.
USAs like catfish, but this fish is tabu for Jewish USAs and Muslims, as it has no scales. This also makes eel and octopus tabu for them as well. Fish is what orthodox Catholics prefer to eat on Fridays, and so that is the day most restaurants will offer on their menus that delicious invention from New England, clam chowder soup.
In China, chicken is chopped up with a cleaver that splinters the bones. The result is that you are always picking pieces of bone out of your mouth. In USA, chicken is cut up at the joints and you eat chicken with you fingers, the same way as you eat corn on the cob.
USAs like popcorn but they prefer a salty taste while Chinese prefer a sugary taste for their popcorn. Ice cream, pie, and cake are the preferred desserts in USA. Salads will range from lettuce, tomato, onion, carrots, to fruit salads. Salads will be offered with salad dressing: Italian, FRA, Russian, blue cheese, ranch, or house dressing.
Yogurt, which was invented in Mongolia because they have a lactose enzyme deficiency, is a favorite dessert in Persia (Iran), Turkey, Bulgaria, and the Caucus region of the world, but USAs like yogurt with a sweet taste. So there is frozen yogurt. Interesting also is the fact that ice cream was invented in China about 2,000 years ago. Interesting because many Chinese restaurants in USA today offer a buffet style of service after which the dinner patron can serve himself frozen yogurt from an ice cream machine at the end of his dinner.
Most USAs don’t realize it, but one of the principal crops in USA is the soybean, which originally came from Manchuria (now Dong Bei). Many people do not know that spaghetti, noodles, pizza (without cheese), yogurt, tofu, egg drop soup, and many other foods originated in China. Even the first drilled oil well originated over a thousand years ago in China with bamboo used for the tubing instead of steel pipe. The western world could not have progressed without the invention of paper, the magnetic compass, porcelain, and black gunpowder that was invented in China. Who knows what else may be coming out of China in the future that will benefit the world? After Richard Nixon returned from his historical meeting with Mao Tse Tung and Zhou en Lai, he hailed Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture as a great alternative to western medicine, which has gained wide support in USA.
USA is known as the land of Coca Cola. Coca Cola and other 'soft drinks” or “sodas” are consumed by many. It is probably the leading cause of diabetes in USA but due to the influence of money, no one is challenging these businesses. In the same way, the tobacco companies have used their money to influence legislation in Congress. But after the ever-prevalent sodas, most USAs prefer coffee. During warm weather, iced tea will be the preferred drink of many USAs while hot chocolate will be a welcome change in cold weather. Hot tea with honey and lemon is a great wintertime beverage to overcome colds.
The United States does not lack customs. It is just that customs vary from region to region. There are no national customs, except to shake hands upon meeting. There is no removal of shoes except in the homes of Muslim USAs and immigrants coming from Asia.
China is a much older civilization and its regionalism has developed into ethnicity, united only by its character writing. So customs from the south China are unknown to many in the north and vice versa. The U.S. is a land of great diversity in culture, customs, and manners. It is just that it is not known for these things as much as it is known for its technological and liberal ideas of freedom. We can see that the civil rights of many USAs were greatly abused in the past, and since 1945 the record of the Supreme Courts in protecting the privacy of citizens has been atrocious. The Supreme Court lack of civil rights before 1965 was so that Afro-USA frustrations broke out in riots almost creating a civil war in 1968.
President John F. Kennedy was the first president in 180 years to confront this bigotry and prejudice that resulted in inequality and injustice. He pushed for a Civil Rights law that “had some teeth in it,” (meaning that money was to be appropriated to enforce it). Sad to say, Civil Rights became a law only after JFK’s assassination and it was Senator Hubert Humphrey who persuaded the then President Johnson that it was morally right and needed.

has been a terrorist organization that has never been stamped out and a blot on the record of the United States government ever since.
Although this is digressing a bit from the topic of cultural differences, there are signs that Chinese visited North USA and South USA for hundreds of years before Columbus “discovered” USA. Perhaps the USA Indian greeting, hao, is a shortened version of “Ni hoa ma” (hello in Chinese). Korean immigrants in Paraguay and Bolivia can understand words and whole sentences in the Guarani Indian language of Paraguay. And there is a stelae (statue) of a woman in the Maya city of Santa Rosa de Copan in Honduras who holds her hands together in what is known as the universal Buddhist symbol.
But to show the reader that even though the USA Constitution was a change from the idea of a divine rule by kings and queens, civil rights becomes part of what is the foundation of a legal government by which citizens were to be protected from the denial of the rights of others. The first such instance of rights given to citizens was the Magna Charta which gave rights to nobles, but not the common man of England. That was binding upon the king, but the Constitution made all men equal before the law and it was the first time that a government was to serve the people. Previously, any king to serve unconditionally called upon people. But the Magna Charta leveled the playing field quite a bit than when the king held absolute power over everyone.
Civil rights are a cultural aspect often stressed in USA but not always practiced. The USA Indian was never protected against broken treaties and it was a government that was based on the USA Constitution, which was supposed to uphold their civil rights. It has a long way to go to undo the wrongs it has done to the Native USA Indians. The Secretary of War Staunton instigated one of the worst wrongful actions taken against the USA Indian. Whether Staunton initiated this action or if he was acting for others, but it took away the lands Indians were given and then gave it to the railroad builders. The U.S. Army started its Indian Wars in 1867, which was most likely done to appease the greed of the railroad barons as they aided the U.S. Army by paying $10 for each buffalo skin buffalo hunters brought in. This was to deprive the Indian of his source of food, clothing, housing, and medicine. And the Indians fought skillfully and bravely for ten years as they were driven up the Missouri River Valley into Montana.
After the Indian wars ended in 1877, the reservation the government set aside for the Indians was usually land white people weren’t able to use. But Great Spirit was kinder to the Indian and gave them gold in the Black Hills, oil, uranium, and other riches on the land the government in Washington considered worthless. Isn’t it strange how God works?
Thomas Jefferson purchased Louisiana to be used specifically as land reserved for the USA Indians to live on, yet the USA government set aside large tracts of these lands for parks on which no one can live while the railroads were given much of this Indian land to sell to non-Indian settlers. The railroad companies was used the money from the sales of these lands to finance the construction of railroads crossing the United States. The majority of USA Indians has never been compensated for the seizure of their lands. Congress made laws that forbade an USA Indian of his right his right to return to his reservation if after he decided that life in the rest of USA was not satisfactory.
In the last half of the 20th Century, Israel has treated Palestinians in the same manner, yet refuses to compensate Palestinians for lands they have seized. U.N. resolutions call upon Israel to do so but Israel rejects nearly all of the U.N. Resolutions and still remains part of the United Nations.
Israel makes laws for Palestinians much like the USA government has imposed on Native USA Indians. If a Palestinian leaves Palestine, his land is confiscated by the Israeli government and which then designates his land as land suitable for Israeli Settlements.
Does anyone learn from history