西南科技大学城市学院基础科学系—英语演讲.pptVIP

* * Chinese except friendships to be more lasting. For Chinese a true friendship endures throughout life changes. Chinese are friends even if they haven’t spoken for 20 years. If you shared something at one time, then all your life you are friends. This is the best of guanxi(关系), the Wide Web that connects Chinese through time and space. So, we can say Chinese invented the Internet long before Bill Gates was born. In North America, even the relationship in which people feel close and tell each other personal problems may not survive life changes such as moving to another city, graduation from a university or marriage. If the people do not see each other regularly, the relationship is likely to die. Different foundations for friendships. Chinese friends share “ things in common”: a task, a class, the hometown. Friendships are formed by people who work or go to school together. You may or may not like the person, but if he or she can do something for you because of his position or job, you can be friends. But in North America, business and friendship are kept separate. The friendships are usually tied to specific activities. A person may have work friends and leisure (休闲时) activity friends. Also friends tend to have similar financial circumstances, because friendship in the West is based on equality. Westerns expect friends to be independent. Why? It’s because their friendship is mostly a matter of providing emotional support and spending time together, so they do not feel comfortable in a relationship in which one person is giving more and the other is dependent on what is giving. A westerner will respond to a friend’s trouble by asking “What do you want to do?” The idea is to help the friend to think out the problem and discover the solution he or she really wants and then to support the solution. Chinese friends give each other more concrete help. A Chinese will use personal