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Chinese Culture

Chinese Culture
Chinese Culture and the Stereotypes Centered Around it
Taylor Gentry
University of Kentucky

Chinese Culture

Abstract
The purpose of this research is to provide depth and insight into Chinese culture, and to
show connections between the communication issue and in class concepts of this culture.
This research brings up the birth laws, how women are treated in the culture, and the
differences between American culture and Chinese culture. It gives information about the
culture today. The customs, arts, food, celebrations, and language. There is information in
the paper about interviews that were conducted as well as information from various
sources on the Internet. Also, some information from my experiences in my life.

Chinese Culture

Chinese Culture and the Stereotypes Centered Around it

After getting my paper back from grading, I was able to see the parts of my paper
where I was lacking. I was lacking in audience appropriateness. I think that in some parts
of my paper, I could have explained more clearly about what I was trying to say, so I
went back and added on to paragraphs. My thesis and introduction was not as clear as it
should have been, I went back and added to my introduction and worked more on making
my thesis explain more of what this essay is about. I also added to my conclusion to more
clearly bring the paper together.

Many people use stereotypes to put a certain group of people, that share some
characteristic, in a box where they are treated as the same, but stereotyping people not
only is wrong and always false, it blinds people form the uniqueness of different cultures.
For this paper we were made to pick a culture that we were not apart off. One that we
knew little about, and then do research on it. Not only were we to research it, but also
interview two people that are apart of that culture. This gave us more personal
information that we could include into our research. I interviewed a girl and a guy that
are Chinese. They were actually both from New York, but their families had moved there
from China. The girl was the only one in the family not born in China.
In the paper you will learn a lot about the Chinese culture and what makes it
unique. Also, some stereotypes that were made by people on the outside of China looking
in. I told the interviewees some stereotypes and got their opinion on them. I got to know

Chinese Culture
their background and information about their family and customs that they brought to
America.

Chinese Culture

Chinese culture is very unique. A lot of its culture has spread all over the world.
China is home to many wonders that make the country a unique place. China is the most
populated country in the world, they are one of the largest exporters of goods, and their
official language is Mandarin. Mandarin is only spoken by 53% of the population. Many
things make up the Chinese culture for good or for bad. You have their food, arts,
Internet, video games, marriage, and even censorship plays a big role in Chinese culture.

Food Culture

Chinese culture is unique because of their ability to keep old customs in the
culture. When a guest or senior relative is at the table to eat, they always are provided the
best food first. When the dishes are being placed on the table, they are arranged in a
certain order. Main courses in the middle with the sides evenly placed around them.
When the main dishes are cut or prepared, they are placed facing the guest or the senior
members at the table. One thing that makes chine unique would be a chopstick. China has
a long history with chopsticks as tableware. Chopsticks to the Chinese people are not just
sticks; they reflect the wisdom of Chinese ancient people. In Chinese culture today,

Chinese Culture

chopsticks are considered as lucky gifts for important ceremonies and marriages (Chinese
Food Culture, 2014).

Chinese Arts

The most influential part of the Chinese culture would be its art. Chinese art is
influenced greatly by the countrys mystical and rich spiritual history. Kung Fu began in
China. It means human achievement. Also, the ancient Chinese were philosophers and
writers. The arts in Chinese culture are very traditional and have always been that way.
Chinese arts is a lifestyle, it isnt a pass time for the most part. They take art very
seriously (Zimmerman, 2013).

(http://personaltao.com/teachings/questions/what-isyin-yang/)

This art that originated in China and is really popular is the Yin-Yang symbol. It
means two things forming a whole. Some examples would be day and night and the
marriage between a man and a woman.

Chinese Pop Culture

Chinese Culture

Chinese pop culture is really interesting. The way they go about normal stuff is
different than the way we would do it. The way they date is different than how we do in
America. Their popular television shows are so much different then the ones we have.
One thing that really stuck out to me though, was their Internet culture and the way in
censors what they can search, but also give them the freedom for creativity in many
different ways.

PCs in China

A stereotype that goes around is that Asians are good at PC games. This might be
a stereotype because ever since the PlayStation came out in 2000, consoles have been
banned in China (Custer, n.d.). Games that are popular in the United States are more First
Person Shooter (FPS) based while in China, where consoles are banned, games that are
more strategy based are more prevalent in China.
The Chinese population is growing in the video game industry and it is a big part
of their culture today. Before it was common for everyone to have a laptop or computer,
China has special stores called Internet bars. These stores were designed specifically
for gamers. This led to children skipping class and even development of gamming
addiction. With people having an addiction to video games, they would often do things
they wouldnt normally do to get the income for their games, like stealing from others.
The addiction was so prevalent that the company who started the Internet bars started

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rehab centers for their children to go to if they showed signs of an addiction to video
games.

Censorship

Something that I found interesting was the censorship that china puts on their
Internet search engines. With China having a communist government, they want to
censorship anything that could change the views of the people. Some of the words or
phrases that I found that were censored are; persecution, democracy movements, and
Tibetan independence. If these words were to be searched in China, the page would come
up empty saying that the page cannot be found (Wiseman, n.d.).

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2059740/A-Picture-Says-1000-Words-About-Googles-Censorship-InChina

This is a image of someone who used Google in China and in another country.
They searched the same word and ended up with two different results. It just shows how
the Chinese government tries to protect certain things from their people.

Chinese Culture

Something that is going on right now is a protest in China. It was recently cleared
but people were still posting stuff on the Internet. One person put on a forum to gather
back onto the streets. Later that day, he was arrested for just putting words on the Internet
(Forsythe, 2014). The Chinese government has started to track the Chinese peoples
online footsteps and persecuting them. It is a crime for people to post messages calling
people to attend protests.

Relationships

In the United States, dating is very common in high school and even middle
school, but in China, dating is usually not even thought of until after high school. Very
difficult college entrance examinations make it almost impossible for an individual living
in China to be able to date. The most common thing is for Chinese people to start dating
after they have finished school. Something interesting that I found on
chineseculture.about.com was that many Chinese people view dating as a pragmatic
affair. They are not looking for love, they are looking for someone who fits their ideals.
Instead of marrying their crush or someone they think has a nice personality, they look
for people who own a house and car. They look for this because it means the man or
woman has a stable career. (Custer, n.d.)
In the United States, the parents usually do not intervene in their childs
relationships, but in China, the parents are involved. It is not uncommon that parents
would pair their children up with someone they think would be a good match for them.
Also, if the childs date does not get his or her parents approval, the dating is usually

Chinese Culture
drawn to a halt. Chinese culture believes that the most important thing when judging
someone is his or her first impression. In the United States, we have a saying the first
impression is everything. In China, this is literally true.
When Chinese people get married, they dont usually keep their friends to

themselves and their social lives a secret. When two people marry in China, their friends,
social lives, and everything else is shared between each other. The females friends
become the husbands friends, her social life becomes apart of his social life and vice
versa. One thing that scares a lot of Chinese men is finding a women early. If the man is
unable to find a woman by the age of 26 to 28, they are usually unable to find one
forever. This is why, in the Chinese culture, dating is taken seriously (Custer, n.d.).

Chinese One-Child Policy

In 1979, the Chinese government saw the growing population of china, which was
already one quarter of the worlds population, as a problem. The baby boomers born in
the 1950s were getting to be around the age of reproduction. If China would decide not
to take action the Chinese population, the country would become too populated and
would not be good living standards for the people living in China (Hesketh, Lu, & Xing.
2005). In my interview, both my interviewees were second born. Also, the first born in
both families were born in China. The Chinese One-Child Policy could be one of the
reasons why they moved to the United States.

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Chinese Culture
Not only did this slow down the growth of the population in china, but it also
started to decline the amount of girl gender babies to be born. The Policy itself was not
the main reason. A male has many more cards to bring to the table than a female child.

He is able to preform heavy labor, inherit land, and pass down the family name. But how
can the mother decide what the gender of the child will be? In 1980 the ultrasound
become widely used, giving the mother a chance to see what gender baby she would give
birth too. The Chinese government saw the decline in girl babies and passed a law in
2001 that made it illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of the baby. Though this law was
passed, parents living in China would bribe doctors for the results of the ultrasound and
then abort the child if the baby was female. There were some exceptions to the One-Child
Policy. If the child has a disability or both of the parents work in occupations with a lot of
risk. A change to the One Child Policy in China was made in late 2013.

Change to the One-Child Policy

The policy has been up for around 45 years and the Chinese government is seeing
a decline in the birth of girls. In late 2013, the Chinese Government made a change to the
policy. The Government made it to where if one parent was a single child, then they were
allowed to have 2 children instead of the original one. Since the change

Stereotypes

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When you hear Chinese, what is assumed? It is probably assumed that they are
good at math or smart in general. This is just one of the major stereotypes put on the
Chinese people. When I asked my two Chinese friends if they thought this stereotype was
true, to my surprise, one said it was true and one said it was not. The girl said that it is
true because almost all of her Chinese friends are good at math. On the other hand
though, the guy went to an all-Chinese school in New York in middle school. He said that
this stereotype is definitely not true with a laugh after (Personal Interview, 2014). After
doing a little research on this stereotype and just stereotypes in general, I found that this
is not true. Not every Chinese person is good at math. Although it seems like most are in
America, it is definitely not true.
Another stereotype was all Chinese people are the same. I think this is a
stereotype because some facial features are shared by a lot of the Chinese people. I asked
both my interviewees about this stereotype and they both agreed that this stereotype is not
true (Personal Interview, 2014). The Chinese population is very different in their looks
and what they like. In the Chinese culture there are an almost infinite amount of hobbies
and culture things you can be apart of.
A stereotype that I found looking through the Internet was Chinese people
cannot drive (Seven False Stereotypes, n.d). Obviously, this is not true, but I was
interested to see why this is even a stereotype. I was reading the driving laws for China
and they looked close, if not exactly the same as the United States laws for driving. One
difference that I saw was instead of being able to drive at 15 or 16, like in the U.S., you
must be 18 before you can drive (Traffic Laws in China, n.d.). I found that although the
laws seem to be the same, some of them are not followed by a lot of the people living in

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Chinese Culture
China. Also reading some sites, it seems that the roads are a little dangerous for people
who just moved to China. This might be because the way the roads are made or the
people who are used to driving on them do not follow the laws exactly how they were

made. This stereotype has some truth, but I do not think that it is the Chinese people who
are bad at driving. I believe it is just the different style of driving that they have makes it
seem like they are bad because our way of driving is different.

Conclusion
Before this project, I knew very little about Chinese culture. I only knew stuff
from the news and from stereotypes that I actually thought were true. While doing the
project, I was able to really get an understanding of how their society works and their
culture today. The culture is very unique and seems to have been that way for a long
time. They have kept customs in their cultures for 100s of years. There are many
interesting customs that the Chinese culture has. The art, food, language, and other parts
that make up the culture were all influenced by their history.
The stereotypes targeted at the Chinese culture were interesting, and at the time I
started doing research on them, they seemed to be true. But as I began to really learn
about the Chinese culture and also do some interviews with people apart of the Chinese
culture, it opened up my eyes to so many different things. All the stereotypes were false,
and for the most part, not even half true. In China, there are so many different, unique,
and interesting places, people, and customs that they have. Anything that you can

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imagine and even stuff that you cant take place in the Chinese culture. I honestly wish
that some customs that the Chinese have were used here in America.
I am really happy that I was able to do research on this culture. Learning about
this culture gave me more of an insight of what is happening on the other side of the
world. The way they run their country is so different than the way we run ours. The
problems that they are facing, although some are similar, are vastly different than here in
America.

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References

A Picture Says 1000 Words About Google's Censorship In China. (n.d.). Retrieved
October 30, 2014. Retrieved from
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2059740/A-Picture-Says-1000-WordsAbout-Googles-Censorship-In-China
Chinese Food Culture: Table Manners, Dining Etiquette. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20,
2014. Retrieved from http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine.htm
Custer, C. (n.d.). Dating in China: Whats Different? Retrieved October 30, 2014.
Retrieved from http://chineseculture.about.com/od/Chinese-PopCulture/fl/Dating-in-China-Whatrsquos-Different.htm
Custer, C. (n.d.). Video-gaming in China. Retrieved October 29, 2014. Retrieved from
http://chineseculture.about.com/od/Chinese-Pop-Culture/fl/Video-gaming-inChina.htm
Forsythe, M., & Wong, A. (2014, October 28). Protesters in Hong Kong on Edge as
Police Track Their Online Footprints. Retrieved October 30, 2014. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/world/asia/in-hong-kong-fears-of-apolice-crackdown-online.html
Hesketh, T., Lu, L., & Xing, Z. W. (2005). The effect of China's one-child family policy
after 25 years. New England Journal of Medicine, 353(11), 1171-1176. Retrieved
from Google Scholar.

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Seven false stereotypes about the Chinese. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2014. Retrieved
from http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-website/create
Traffic Laws in China. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2014. Retrieved from
http://www.internations.org/china-expats/guide/driving-in-china-15632/trafficlaws-in-china-2
What is Yin Yang? - Personal Tao. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2014. Retrieved from
http://personaltao.com/teachings/questions/what-is-yin-yang/
Wiseman, P., & Today, U. (n.d.). Cracking the 'Great Firewall' of China's Web
censorship. Retrieved October 29, 2014. Retrieved from

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4707107
Zimmermann, K. (2013, April 17). Chinese Culture: Customs & Traditions of China.
Retrieved October 20, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/28823chinese-culture.html