Post 379: Main American Values vs Chinese values and its impact in the classroom
Main American values include individualism, equality, love of science and technology, optimism for the future, a can-do attitude, progress and change, materialism, and competition. Americans embrace change. Americans want the future to be better than the past. (62)
The single most important pattern in the United States is individualism. spelled out by Locke, that each individual is unique, special, completely different from all other individuals, and the basic unit of nature." The individual and the rights of the individual is paramount. People's personal goals take priority over family and group interests. (69)
In China, the single most important cultural value is harmony. "It is without a doubt that harmony is one of the primordial values of Confucianism and of the Chinese culture. ..According to Confucianism, the ultimate goal of human behavior is to adhere to harmony which leads Chinese people to pursue a conflict free and group-oriented system of human relationships. (84)
Other Chinese cultural values are family togetherness, interdependence in relationships, respect for elders and saving face. (110)
Family Loyalty comes above all else in Chinese society (108). If your grandmother says you drop your barren wife for a more fertile wife even if you are in love with your barren wife, you do it anyway even if you are not in love with the young fertile wife. In China, you are expected to sacrifice your happiness for the survival and good of the family.
In the United States, each individual is free to pursue his/her own happiness. Americans do not mind expressing their opinions out loud nor do they mind expressing their emotions about their opinions out loud. You need only to watch any American Presidential election to see how loudly Americans feel loyalty to either the Republican or Democrat party. At family gatherings during 2016, loud arguments for or against Trump caused family members to defriend each other on Facebook.
In China, loud emotions are suppressed in order to keep family harmony. People have to behave according to their family station with the father as the head of the household, the mother and children who obey the father. Only the father has the authority to express his opinion. Then, his opinion stands/represents the opinion of the whole family. Thus, in China, there is a more group oriented approach.
In the movie, The Farewell, in order to preserve harmony, the family decides not to tell their Grandmother that she is dying of cancer. They also don't tell her that the reason they are having the family reunion is to say goodbye to her for the last time. Instead, they tell her that the family reunion is for a festive occasion. The family avoids telling the truth to the Grandma to spare her pain, and preserve family harmony.
When I was growing up, my parents rarely expressed their emotions out loud in front of us kids. If there was bad news, they kept it to themselves. For instance, I did not find out my mother had a life long heart problem until at her funeral. My father wanted to preserve family harmony by not telling us something painful to preserve family harmony.
Proverbs indeed exemplify both cultures. In American culture, God helps those who helps themselves' exemplifies the individualism in American culture, while 'The first man to raise his voice loses the argument' is a Chinese proverb that exemplifies group harmony above all else.
How does this duality manifest itself in the classroom?
I am an Americanized Chinese American so I have become used to expressing my opinion on everything. I was socialized to raise my hand and participate in class to show the teacher I am paying attention. The more I raised my hand to participate, the better my grade. If the teacher wanted my opinion of a core concept, then I'd better have an opinion that is related to whatever we are studying in class to show I am learning the material and did not fall asleep during the lecture.
However, when I started teaching Asian ESL classes and I asked my Asian students during the 2016 election, "Are you for Hilary Clinton, or are you for Donald Trump?' Nobody volunteered to raise his hand. Everyone sat in silence waiting for me, the teacher, to provide the correct answer. If you are teaching a lot of Asian students, you have to teach your students that it is okay to break from the group and express your own opinion. In many Asian cultures, it is impolite for an individual to express his/her own opinion because it makes that individual look selfish and childish.
What I used to do in my ESL classes was to have my students debate each other on controversial topics where they have a forum where they have to argue a point and express their opinion in the debate. This teaches students not only Western argumentation styles, but also gets Asian students more used to stating their personal opinion.
Have you noticed quiet Asian ESL students? What do you do to get them talking? or to get them to express their opinion?
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