With the increasing pace of China's reform and opening up, increasing cross-border communication, the differences between Chinese and Western etiquette and culture is more and more obvious, the impact of such differences can not be ignored, in the Chinese and Western etiquette has not been a perfect blend of the former, we need to understand the differences in these etiquette.
One, the difference in communication language
Daily greetings, the Chinese people mostly use "Have you eaten?" "Where?" and so on, which reflects a sense of intimacy between people. But for Westerners, this kind of greeting will make the other person feel sudden, awkward, and even unhappy, because Westerners will interpret this kind of questioning as a kind of "cross-examination", and feel that the other person is inquiring about their private life. In the West, everyday greetings are greeted with a simple "Hello" or, depending on the time of day, with "Good morning!" "Good afternoon!" "Good evening!" That's all. The British, on the other hand, would say, "It's a nice day!"
In Chinese, only people who are familiar with each other can call each other by their first names. But in the West, "calling someone by their first name" has a much wider scope than in Chinese. In the West, the common use of "Mr." and "Mrs." to address strangers who do not know their names, the teenage or twenty-something women can be called "Miss", married women can be called "Ms." or "Ms.". For women in their teens or twenties, they can be called "Miss", and married women can be called "Ms." or "Mrs.". Among family members, they can generally call each other by their first names or nicknames, regardless of their seniority. At home, you can call your father and mother by their first names. All male elders can be called "uncle" and all female elders can be called "auntie". This is not possible in China, where you have to distinguish between the generations, the old and the young, or you will be considered impolite.
There are many different ways to say goodbye in Chinese and Western languages. For example, when saying goodbye to a patient, Chinese people often say, "Drink more boiled water," "Wear more clothes," "Get some rest," and so on, to show their care for the patient. But Westerners will never say things like "drink more water" because it is considered to be dictating. For example, they would say, "Take care" or "I hope you get well soon".
The difference in dining etiquette
The Chinese have a saying that "Food is the God of the people", which shows the status of food in the minds of the Chinese people, so the Chinese people regard eating as the most important thing. Chinese cuisine focuses on dishes color, aroma, taste, shape, meaning all, even more than the focus on nutrition, as long as the delicious and to look good, nutrition, on the contrary, seems unimportant. Western diet is more concerned about nutrition and absorption, is a scientific concept of diet. Westerners pay more attention to the nutrition of food and ignore the color, aroma, taste, shape and meaning of how the food, their diet is mostly for survival and health, does not seem to pay attention to the enjoyment of taste.
In terms of dining atmosphere, Chinese people like to be lively during meals, with many people gathered around eating and drinking, laughing and joking, creating a lively and warm dining atmosphere. Unless it is in a very formal banquet, Chinese people do not have any very special etiquette at the table. Westerners, on the other hand, like a quiet and elegant environment during meals, and they believe that they must pay attention to their manners when they are at the table, and must not lose their etiquette, for example, they mustn't make any unpleasant noises when they are eating.
Western and Chinese banquet etiquette is also unique. In China, from ancient times to the present day, most of the left as the honor, in the banquet guests, the status of the very noble guests to be arranged in the left of the upper seat, and then arranged in turn. In the West is to the right as the honor, men and women spaced out and seated, couples are also separated and seated, female guests seat than the male guests seat is slightly higher than the men to be located on their right to pull open the chair for the female guests, in order to show respect for the lady. In addition, Westerners should sit upright when eating, and consider it rude to bend over, bow their heads, and eat with their mouths, but this is exactly the way Chinese people usually eat. When eating Western food, the host does not advocate a big drink, the Chinese table wine is a must, to wine to cheer up, sometimes in order to show respect for each other, drinking is a cup and a glass of wine.
Three, the differences in dress etiquette
Western men in formal social occasions usually wear conservative style suits, white shirts, ties. They like black, so they usually wear black shoes. Western women wear dress suits on formal occasions. It is also customary for women to wear earrings when going out. In western countries, especially in the United States, people usually like to wear casual clothes, such as T-shirts with jeans.
Today's Chinese dress is becoming more and more westernized, and the traditional Zhongshan suit, cheongsam, etc. have been withdrawn from the stage of history. In formal occasions, men and women dress in the same way as in the West. In the usual city life, but will see a lot of people wearing tank tops, shorts, slippers and other ungentlemanly dress.
Etiquette is a kind of culture, is a culture that has vertical inheritance and horizontal borrowing and integration. As the world globalization continues to accelerate the pace of economic and cultural high-speed collision and integration of the background, a large number of Western culture into China, China's traditional etiquette is also constantly by the impact of Western etiquette culture. How to protect the traditional etiquette of the Chinese nation and remove its dregs, and make a reasonable and effective integration with the Western etiquette has become a topic that people constantly think and discuss. More and more people realize that Chinese and Western etiquette and culture will penetrate each other and develop continuously.
Take catering as an example. Nowadays, foreign fast food and western food take up a large proportion in China's food market, and more and more people begin to try and accept these foreign foods. McDonald's almost represents a cultural fashion, and has become the symbol of American culture in the catering field. At the same time, the aristocratic culture of France and the gentleman culture of England also flooded into China with food. With the exchange of Chinese and Western food culture, not only brought cakes, bread, cocktails and other Western dishes, but also brought some advanced Western production technology and dietary methods. All these have injected new vitality into the ancient Chinese food culture. Of course, the influence of our long and splendid food culture overseas is also growing, and a large number of Chinese restaurants have appeared in almost all parts of the world, and Chinese food is increasingly welcomed and loved by people from all over the world. For example, Peking duck has become a local delicacy in the hearts of foreigners.
But in the process of fusion of Chinese and Western etiquette and culture, the Chinese people are blindly enthusiastic about the West, unconsciously fall into two misunderstandings: First, it is to take the Western etiquette to replace the traditional etiquette of our Chinese people. Etiquette is the most representative thing of a nation. For example, among young people, the tendency to hold foreign-style weddings, to celebrate Western festivals, and so on, is a tendency that should not be ignored. Western etiquette just as folklore knowledge to understand what is not wrong, if the tendency to over-ambitious, the loss of national self-esteem, the nation's traditional etiquette will also be submerged. Secondly, the focus of etiquette education is concentrated on the operational level, such as how many degrees of bowing, handshake to stop for a few seconds and so on. It is not impossible to talk about these issues, but if they are only superficial, etiquette becomes empty formalism.
It is undeniable that today's internationally accepted etiquette is basically Western etiquette. The reason for this phenomenon is not merely the power of the West, but the deeper reason lies in the unity of Western values, in the high degree of recognition and deep awareness of Westerners of their own culture. All this is closely related to the social foundation of Christianity, because liturgy is an important way of religious activities, due to the devout belief in religion, Westerners have been receiving this kind of liturgical education and inculcation since they were young, so that the liturgy can naturally manifest itself in the behavior of human beings. The high degree of spiritual and material, political and cultural integration makes people gain a high degree of self-confidence and a sense of superiority, and it is the self-confidence and the sense of superiority of the Westerners that gives the Western culture a strong contagious force, so that its culture of etiquette is regarded as the world standard. The gap between us and the West is obvious when we compare our current Chinese social situation.
The fusion of Chinese and Western etiquette and culture, in our today's China, is more or less borrowed from the West. But whether we are borrowing from the West, or whether we are creating our own system of etiquette, this is not formally difficult. What is difficult is for us to have a complete value system, a high degree of recognition and a deep awareness of our own culture. We learn from the Western etiquette, not only to learn from its form, but also should learn from its inner soul, only then we can build up our own self-confidence and superiority, to establish our infectious power. The revival of the nation is not only a revival of strength, but also a revival of culture. Only when others agree with our culture can we truly make our manners known to the world.
Without etiquette, a person cannot stand, without etiquette, a matter cannot be accomplished, and without etiquette, a country is not peaceful. A society with a lack of etiquette is often an immature society. And a society with less unified or even contradictory standards of etiquette is often an unholy society. Etiquette is the foundation of the whole social civilization, and it is the most direct and comprehensive expression of social civilization. To create a harmonious society, we must start with etiquette. China is facing unprecedented challenges today, whether it is material, spiritual, cultural aspects, there is an urgent need for a complete and reasonable set of values for unification. And etiquette culture is undoubtedly this unification of the "vanguard", only to recognize the differences between Chinese and Western etiquette culture, the two reasonable and effective integration, in order to establish a contemporary Chinese society suitable for the etiquette culture system, to achieve the ideal of a harmonious society.