Intercultural Communication.5.pptVIP

Intercultural Communication Lecture 5 Cultural Diversity Confucian saying “Human beings draw close to one another by their common nature, but habits and customs keep them apart.” English proverb “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Montaigne “There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.” Asking too much Qian who works in US and Zhao who lives in China are really good friends because they have helped each other from time to time in each other’s business. Since Zhao lent Qian a large sum of money to help his business get over the difficulty, Qian was greatly indebted to Zhao. In Chinese culture, friendship means a willingness to be indebted and to repay the debt more than owed. However, many Americans, like Jackson, would say that Zhao was asking too much, for what they value more are individual achievement and independence rather than relationship with one another, and they do not like to put themselves in other’s debt. Americans are willing to help their friends but in most cases, in trivial matters, such as driving a friend to an important event when his/her own arrangements for transportation fail. Reading I Different Lands, Different Friendships 1. Easier to make friends in US Few Americans stay put for a lifetime. With each move, forming new friendship becomes a necessity and part of their new life. Making friends in Japan 　　 Though Most Japanese are very polite and kind, it is difficult to make real close friends with them. Japanese seem to be very deep in thought. The young Japanese are very modern. Some of them, particularly those whose clothing is somewhat absurd sometimes, are not necessarily bad persons. They do not mind what others would think about them. They just wear what they want to.　　 The pattern of thought is quite similar to ours. There will be no problem in making friends with them so long as one is on good terms with them. If one has lang