《中西文化之鉴》书评

我的泛读课作业-Book Report

纠结了一个上午，虽然神经很痛，差点写不下去，但还是写完了。鼓掌，hoho.13号下午又修改了一下。感谢Hyper。Doing the Culture: Cross Cultural Communication in Action is a perfect guidance for western people who want to adapt to Chinese culture successfully, and it offers general reference to the cultural immigrants to avoid fierce culture collision. While it is such a book full of practical advices and suggestions, and depictions of various cultural situations and values, as a Chinese, I learned differently from what Linell Davis, the author, intends for the readers. There Is No Hierarchy among CulturesIn the book Davis elaborates and demonstrates different dimensions of culture to teach the guest of a culture how to lessen the contradictions in thoughts and behaviors against a new culture. In order to make her statements more concrete and understandable, she uses many instances to illustrate her points. Meanwhile she quotes many experts’ words either as supplementary proofs or for further analysis from different perspectives. It is the instances and analysis that tell me that there is only culture diversity but no culture hierarchy.The formation and development of a culture is a product from the interaction of history, geography and many other physical and humanity elements. Since such elements of one culture differed so greatly from another, there are no common standards for assessments of cultures. Every culture has its advantages and disadvantages under certain circumstances, just like everything has two sides. What we should do first is to be aware of it, and then take up the good aspects from other cultures and make up for the bad ones in our own culture.When thinking more deeply, I consider about the cult of Chinese people towards western culture. Nowadays more and more young people are fanatical about western culture, of which they themselves may not be aware. They eat bread, fired fish and salad; they imitate the costumes of those western pop stars or hippies; they flood abroad for education; they show no respect for their elder generation or even their parents for the so called “individualism” and “equality”. Ridiculous, isn’t it? We should never think that Asian culture is inferior to western culture. Economic development is not everything. Though there is something we should learn from the west, we must keep holding on to our own culture. Five thousand years of history can not mean nothing to us. The traditions, the virtues and the spirit of Confucius rooted so deeply and are reflected in every aspect of our daily life. Culture Is Only a ToolSince there is no hierarchy but only variety of culture, culture is only a tool to help people lead a happy life and help society function efficiently. Davis does not give a definition of culture, not only for that culture is so complicated a concept that it is quite difficult to give a scientific and exact definition, but also because there is no need for Davis to define it. She in her book teaches people who are as individuals in certain cultures how to understand and use culture, how to communicate with people from different cultures and cooperate in a group under an international background. The word “culture” emerges because we want to give all the things which deeply, unavoidablely and subconsciously influence our life a generic name. The name itself has nothing to do with our life, but the use of that name will make a big difference. Thus culture is neither for worship nor for studying. We worship culture to recognize its importance and we study culture so as to apply it more effectively. People who live geographically near from each other or who are cultivated under the same cultural backgrounds are likely to hold similar values. These are what culture gives us. Culture shapes our concepts and further our minds. It is really difficult for us to understand another culture by just seeing what it takes on. Therefore, we need to explore culture's working mechanism and core values which, occupying dominant places in a culture, are not likely to change over a long period of time. Once we are familiar with these fundamental elements of culture, we can avoid being perplexed when facing situations involving cross-cultural communications. Furthermore, we can even get some inductions of culture’s common values from various social phenomena through our attentive observations. Culture will help us understand the function mode of a society or a community. It tells us what is appreciated and what can not be accepted under certain circumstances. Every culture offers us with a set of rules to obey which are just conventions you have to follow, or you will be dispatched from that group of people. Culture also represents the mental world of people so that it will help when people are in negotiation under an international background, and it will do a lot of favor in persuasions among cultures. In concise conclusion, culture is an effective tool to establish pleasant relationships, build harmonious communities and achieve business goals. Above is only a part of what I have learned from the book Doing the Culture: Cross Cultural Communication in Action. Culture is such a wide and dense subject that we can never explore it to the end. People shape a culture according to their needs and in turn are shaped by values and practices of a culture, thus the development of culture will never stop. (Words: 884）本来第三点想写法国是西方和中国最类似的国家。怕写得不够深刻老师嫌我扯。就此打住吧。这的确是一本纠结的书。