On The Differences Of Family Value Orientation Between The Chinese And The American

In the process of the communication between China and the United States, an issue we cannot ignore is the cultural differences. Cultural differences greatly hamper cultural exchanges, and produce tremendous barriers to mutual understanding. This thesis attempts to identify the differences in Sino-US family concept, and shed light on the root of these differences. It approaches Sino-US family concept differences from Hofstede’s culture value orientation theory, and takes Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands as the case for a focused study. Among five of the cultural dimensions, namely Individualism/Collectivism, Power Distance, Masculinity/Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance and Long-Term Orientation/Short-Term Orientation, four of them relevant to family conception are used in the analysis.The Individualism/Collectivism dimension determines people’s value orientation, how they live together, and how they engage in social communication. It accounts for the major differences in the Chinese and American family concept. Power distance differences among the two countries have their cultural roots in family, for all people start acquiring their mental software immediately from the elders in whose presence they grow up, and model themselves after the examples set by these elders. In Chinese masculine culture, gender roles are clearly distinct and in family, father is concerned more about the economic and social affairs, mother is to take care of children and the affairs at home; in American feminine society, the difference in gender roles is not distinguished so markedly, men and women fulfill similar obligations and duties. While China belongs to high uncertainty avoidance culture, the United States belongs to low uncertainty avoidance culture. Thus it is not easy for Chinese who take maintaining stability as the top priority to accept the unfamiliar and differences. In contrast, Americans whose culture encourages risk taking and innovation are more ready to accept differences and “change”.