A Comparative Study On Differences Of Drinking Culture Between China And Britain

With a long history, wine plays an important role in people’s daily communication. Because of differences in the living environment, historic backgrounds, traditional customs, values, thinking modes and social norms, different style, rich and colorful ethnic characteristics are shown in the east and the west wine cultures."Wine", as a kind of typical cultural symbol is a cultural topic worth our study.This paper takes China and Britain as an example, in an attempt to reveal the differences from the perspective of drinking culture. Different from previous studies, this paper focuses on the social behaviour reflected by different drinking cultures, especially the two kinds of drinking culture which provides a very special perspective to study the uniqueness of the culture and the roots of different cultures.Beginning from the contrast between China and UK drinking types, the paper first analyses the drinking occasions on which different ways of communication occurs to work out the reasons and inner source of cultural contact. Next reveals the cultural and communication differences in English and Chinese. Thirdly, it can make Chinese people improve drinking habits, and at the same time help to promote Chinese culture and enhance the cultural exchange and integration, which offers new idea to drinking culture research as well. Through objective induction, analyzation, summarization of the Sino-British drinking behaviour using comparative method, in-depth understanding of Chinese and western cultural connotation and differences is got. From the drinking behavior, objective image, final analysis of the most fundamental reasons of drinking culture differences is the differences in drinking purposes. In China, wine is generally used as a tool which in nature is more important than wine itself. But in Britain, people drink to enjoy the wine and life.Through the above study, the necessity of different drinking ways in the cross-cultural communication can be concluded and mutual respect, understanding, reference are given attention to. Also the author hopes to contribute herself as an individual to doing Sino-British root culture difference research, which can be reference, for the Chinese culture development from outland culture points.