Week 3: Context on Communication

Name: ___Buenavista, Reena S._________________________ Section: __8____ Score: _______

Activity 2: The Cultural Differences between the East and West

INSTRUCTION: Read the short article written by Annalisa Merelli entitled, “The cultural differences
between East and West, according to one artist.” Study each pictorial representation of each cultural
behavior/aspect and discuss which of the two illustrations for each category represents that of the
Philippines. Give examples to illustrate your point if necessary.

CATEGORY DISCUSSION
Dealing with problems Looking at the comparison of the graphic artist Yang Liu, the side that reflects
Filipinos’ way of dealing with problems the most is that of the East, the color
Red. It portrays how Chinese people tend to manage their problems by avoiding
the main issue and chooses a different path to overcome it. This kind of problem
management is evident on our country for having to live in a third world
country, we long to end the difficulties we experience thus we choose an easy
way-out from our problems, just like how the government chooses short-term
solutions rather than the answers that would benefit us in the long-run.
The boss Bosses here in the Philippines are treated like someone who are powerful and
should be respected, which is why I deem the perception of our country similar
to the view of the East (color Red) with regards to the boss. Based from my
observation, I rarely see a boss in this country who shares the same office with
their subordinates with the reason that they view him as someone untouchable.
When you’re a boss in the Philippines, it is considered normal that you
command them to do anything you say, or you have the right to punish them.
Expressing opinion I think the East’s way (color Red) of expressing opinions as portrayed by Yang
Liu may be the same to the way of the Filipinos in the sense that we go through
different explanations before coming to the main point. As a Filipino, I observe
that we hate the feeling of losing to something like arguments, which is why we
tend to provide our explanations for evidence first in order to make sure that our
opinions would be believable for other people. This is evident on social media
interactions, most especially when the topic pertains to the government.
Telling the truth I believe that people have their own ways and reasons of telling the truth,
however, generally speaking, Filipinos tend to express the truth like how the
East do it (color Red): say something in contrast from what is real. As Filipinos
with known sympathetic character, one of the reasons behind this is because we
don’t want someone to be hurt by telling the truth. On the other hand, this may
also be for our own benefit such as when selling goods that are low-quality but
falsely advertise it in order to gain profit, which is also a strategy of Chinese
people.
Personal branding On the aspect of personal branding, on the other hand, Filipinos have the closest
characteristic to that of the West, the color Blue, with the reason that we talk
greatly of what we can do. As what I mentioned, Filipinos tend to hate the
feeling of losing to anything which is why we often pretend to know everything,
to be something we are not in order to gain the attention people and impress
them. On this modern period, it is evidently rampant with the use of social
media for it makes it easy to create fake impressions through the posts their
share, photos they upload and many more.

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 Week 3: Context on Communication

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