Overcoming cultural differences between East and West
- By Wang Dongying
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 19, 2014
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In his 1889 poem "The Ballad of East and West," Rudyard Kipling said, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," an inference that the culture of the West, that being Europe and the Americas, would always be very different from that of the East, China and the rest of Asia.
This assertion remains true today. But these differences need not create conflict. Indeed, we can overcome these differences through tolerance, education and understanding.
Worlds apart
Westerners are far from perfect. They may fail to use litter bins, occasionally jump queues, eat with their mouths open, forget to say please or thank you, and may balk at giving up a seat to elderly or pregnant person on a train or bus. However such bad habits are a rarity, and many people may express their annoyance should they see such behavior.
In other parts of the world, locals may hardly bat an eyelid should someone spit on the pavement, shout loudly into a mobile phone or barge onto a bus or train.
Such behavior may be excused on occasion and in some countries even be forgiven when one understands the social history, education and other factors that precipitate such behavior.
Queuing and barging
A lack of resources, fewer trains or overpopulation can result in an acceptance of the pushing and shoving that might take place when boarding buses and trains. In Japan, for example, commuters are famously pushed onto subway trains by station guards. This would be far from acceptable in London, though many do put up with very crowded trains nonetheless.
When I travel to my home country of China, my English husband becomes particularly agitated when commuters barge onto buses and trains.
He might even raise his objection, even though his Chinese is not that great, pointing out to errant passengers that a queue exists. Some people stand back, in shock while others studiously ignore him, though fortunately his objections have never resulted in any major altercation.
My husband is not the only Westerner upset at such behavior. On our travels across China we have met countless Westerners who have expressed their annoyance at queue jumping.
Of course, not all locals behave in such a manner, and indeed many are embarrassed at how some of their own country folk behave.
No spitting please
Perhaps the worst habit is spitting. It is something that has been virtually eliminated in the West, especially since the 1950s, when there were very public campaigns discouraging people from spitting because of the spread of tuberculosis.
However, people in the West still have the bad habit of spitting out their chewing gum, if the white splats on the pavement are anything to go by.
In China too there have been efforts made to reeducate the public, but it has been an uphill struggle to persuade people to refrain from spitting.
Traditional Chinese medical thought suggests it is unhealthy to swallow phlegm, though this is not necessarily true.
Nonetheless, spitting has declined considerably in more developed urban areas like Beijing and Shanghai, especially since the SARS epidemic of 2002. However, in other areas the habit persists to varying degrees, from moderate to ever-present.
During my husband's first China trip, he was often woken up early in the morning by people walking on the street clearing their throat. His remarks brought it to my attention, and rekindled my dislike of this bad habit, which I had previously learned to ignore.
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