There are many difficulties of studying in America. This is why a distressed tone is undergoing Liu’s article, especially when he decided to move out an American family and live with Chinese. He was at lost and depressed. His decision of moving out is understandable because of facing a culture shock and lacking rich vocabulary to express his emotional feelings. Staying with people who use the same language would be a way to alleviate the feelings of loneness and home-sickness to some extent. Even when the people he stayed with were strangers towards him, he would feel warm and safe, because, they are using same language, thinking in a same way, and belongs to a same culture.
Based on my experience of three weeks staying in America, I have somewhat similar feelings to Liu, although the situation is better than him. Every time a conversation that people speak in English would become an English listening test for me, I need to try my best to focus those sentences, but I can still only understand fifty or sixty percent of their meanings, which make me feel like having surdomutism. Moreover, things would become worse if those words were given by my professors on a lecture. For example, my American classmates consider my chemistry teacher is the great person, not only explaining the chemistry world but also sharing personal story to inspire them. However, when my classmates are laughing, I usually don’t understand why they are laughing, because I think the story is not sort of funny. Even one of Chinese students in that class sent him an E-mail to him, indicating his voice is not loud enough to hear clearly which I totally agree with him. But professor replied this email, saying this is the first time that student said his voice is not resounding.
Overall, life, indeed, would not be easy for a person to study in a place where he or she has never been before, and difficulties are so common. Nevertheless, from my point of view, those difficulties itself are part of things we need to study, to overcome. Culture shock, actually, is an acceleration to make us grow up, and become more mature.
Part 2
sarcasm
a way of speaking or writing that involves saying the opposite of what you really mean in order to make an unkind joke or to show that you are annoyed
whatsoever
used to emphasize a negative statement=whatever
saturate
to put a lot of something into a particular place, especially so taht you could not add any more
2009年9月27日星期日
2009年9月20日星期日
Assignment 3
Learning other countries’ nonverbal communication would not only be assistance for communicating, but also is a way to appreciate a diverse culture. During almost three weeks staying at United States, I have noticed some differences and similarities between China and America.
Gestures, based on my experience, are often used by Westerns. I still can remember, a same English word, dinosaur, the foreigner teacher disguised himself as a Wyvern, and tried hard to extend his neck, hoping us could remember one of important figures that a Wyvern has. Nevertheless, our Chinese English teacher only took some pictures and described its characteristic by speaking.
Moreover, ways of eye contact has a significant inverse meaning between the two countries. Chinese do not often directly look at others’ eyes when talking with them, because that would be considered rude and lack culture. However, in America, too little eye contact would be thought unfriendly by the person you communicate with, because eye contact is the way to respect him or her and show your participation in this conversation.
There are also some similarities in USA and China. For example, when people have no idea how to solve problems, they will shrug their shoulders. Also, “thumb up” has a same meaning, good job, in both China and America. And body space, both of Chinese and Americans keep some kind of distance from strangers, and would be closer to their friends.
Under different cultures’ background, it is understandable that people has a various nonverbal communication. Chinese culture emphasizes that people should be modest and have a collective spirit, so overdoing gestures are not welcomed. However, America is a country promotes personal values, there is no underlying culture or social rules to restrict the way of showing self point of view.
Overall, from my point of view, a country’s nonverbal communication is somewhat based on the country’s culture. So it is rather important to master the meaning of those gestures. Following the customs will help foreigners to communicate with local people.
Gestures, based on my experience, are often used by Westerns. I still can remember, a same English word, dinosaur, the foreigner teacher disguised himself as a Wyvern, and tried hard to extend his neck, hoping us could remember one of important figures that a Wyvern has. Nevertheless, our Chinese English teacher only took some pictures and described its characteristic by speaking.
Moreover, ways of eye contact has a significant inverse meaning between the two countries. Chinese do not often directly look at others’ eyes when talking with them, because that would be considered rude and lack culture. However, in America, too little eye contact would be thought unfriendly by the person you communicate with, because eye contact is the way to respect him or her and show your participation in this conversation.
There are also some similarities in USA and China. For example, when people have no idea how to solve problems, they will shrug their shoulders. Also, “thumb up” has a same meaning, good job, in both China and America. And body space, both of Chinese and Americans keep some kind of distance from strangers, and would be closer to their friends.
Under different cultures’ background, it is understandable that people has a various nonverbal communication. Chinese culture emphasizes that people should be modest and have a collective spirit, so overdoing gestures are not welcomed. However, America is a country promotes personal values, there is no underlying culture or social rules to restrict the way of showing self point of view.
Overall, from my point of view, a country’s nonverbal communication is somewhat based on the country’s culture. So it is rather important to master the meaning of those gestures. Following the customs will help foreigners to communicate with local people.
2009年9月13日星期日
Assignment 2 optional 2
Chinese are not likely to show their personal feelings, especially negative feelings, too much in public. The major reason I suppose is related to traditional Chinese culture, which is our emotion is influenced by others’ point of view and specific situation. For example, even when feeling outstanding on something, I’m always told by parents and teachers,” try not to let face light up with pleasure and be modest”, because it may bring pressure to others. That’s why when I wanted to consult a top-student in my class on a few math problems in high school, he told me he have to try and cannot guarantee he can make it, although those problems which I have already analyzed most one hour were solved perfectly by him in the following few minutes.
And then, it is easily to understand that Chinese also tend to hide their negative emotions, they do not want to let other people to worry about him or her. Take mine experience for an instance, when I used to fall from the second fall to the ground, I haven’t even talked this to my parents. Because it didn’t hurt me a lot, but I thought if I told my parents, they would become very worried, and I made them have a negative feelings.
Chinese used not to be allowed show affection in public by holding hands, let alone kiss. Hug is permitted, but it is a way to show friendship instead of affection. Nevertheless, being exposed to the influence and exchanges of a wide variety of Western thoughts, youth’s Chinese generation has begun to show affection in public.
Overall, Chinese tend to hide their emotions no matter they are positive or negative, but this situation is changing due to outside affections especially Western thoughts.
And then, it is easily to understand that Chinese also tend to hide their negative emotions, they do not want to let other people to worry about him or her. Take mine experience for an instance, when I used to fall from the second fall to the ground, I haven’t even talked this to my parents. Because it didn’t hurt me a lot, but I thought if I told my parents, they would become very worried, and I made them have a negative feelings.
Chinese used not to be allowed show affection in public by holding hands, let alone kiss. Hug is permitted, but it is a way to show friendship instead of affection. Nevertheless, being exposed to the influence and exchanges of a wide variety of Western thoughts, youth’s Chinese generation has begun to show affection in public.
Overall, Chinese tend to hide their emotions no matter they are positive or negative, but this situation is changing due to outside affections especially Western thoughts.
2009年9月8日星期二
Part 2
Undeniably, language has a major influence on people’s life. In “Mother Tougue”, according to several anecdotes concerning Amy Tan’s mother, Amy vividly explains this to the audience. Indeed, difference of using language between my parent and me do exist.
The main distinction of language between my parent and me is the tone. They usually speak in a formal way no matter who the audience is. Even when my mother asks me to help her to change the air conditioner, she says that sentence in a commanding tone. By contrast, the choices of what kind of words and sentences should be used to express my point of view are always optional, formal or informal.
I suppose one reason of this difference of speaking tone is derived from dissimilar tendency of the times. When my parents were the same age as I am, what the education they received was communism propaganda which included a variety of slogans like “abide by the great leader Mao” or “ socialism is the only way for China to become thriving and prosperous”. Those sentences, in my eyes, are nonsense and inane, but in my parents’ opinion in that time, those were the truth. However, as china’s policy of opening to the outside world, different opinions coming from outside affect the youth generation of China, the tone that they uses becomes varied. They do not speak Chinese formally as their parents do. For example, I use Arab numbers to replace some Chinese character in my sentence sometimes, because they have similar pronunciations, and are easily to speak out.
Moreover, even some meanings of ancient Chinese characters have been changed artificially. Like character “囧”, in ancient Chinese it means bright, however, as the shape of this character is like a man’s face with emotional feeling, this character has been defined a new meaning, embarrassing. This character is derived from Internet, and of course, cannot be used in formal meetings. When there is an important speech that I need to give, words I choose to use become complicated. The main feature to distinguish whether I’m using a formal language is to feel whether it is hard to comprehend. I personally think formal speech is unbearable and interminable, and make audience feel there is a barrel for further communication between them and the speaker. Hence, it is understandable that a formal speech I give would need me type hundreds of words, and if the same meaning of that speech is used in informal speech, the data of word account would dramatically decrease.
Overall, many kind of tone of languages I encounter in my daily life, using internet language on-line, informal speaking with my friend, formal one toward my parents.
These are all about tones. Also, speaking English occurs my English classes, Mandarin is used in the rest of subjects and formal situation, and I also usually speak Sichuan accent, the local accent. In my opinion, the reason why there are so many kind of languages and tones is because of popularity, different situation and, environment you live in.
The main distinction of language between my parent and me is the tone. They usually speak in a formal way no matter who the audience is. Even when my mother asks me to help her to change the air conditioner, she says that sentence in a commanding tone. By contrast, the choices of what kind of words and sentences should be used to express my point of view are always optional, formal or informal.
I suppose one reason of this difference of speaking tone is derived from dissimilar tendency of the times. When my parents were the same age as I am, what the education they received was communism propaganda which included a variety of slogans like “abide by the great leader Mao” or “ socialism is the only way for China to become thriving and prosperous”. Those sentences, in my eyes, are nonsense and inane, but in my parents’ opinion in that time, those were the truth. However, as china’s policy of opening to the outside world, different opinions coming from outside affect the youth generation of China, the tone that they uses becomes varied. They do not speak Chinese formally as their parents do. For example, I use Arab numbers to replace some Chinese character in my sentence sometimes, because they have similar pronunciations, and are easily to speak out.
Moreover, even some meanings of ancient Chinese characters have been changed artificially. Like character “囧”, in ancient Chinese it means bright, however, as the shape of this character is like a man’s face with emotional feeling, this character has been defined a new meaning, embarrassing. This character is derived from Internet, and of course, cannot be used in formal meetings. When there is an important speech that I need to give, words I choose to use become complicated. The main feature to distinguish whether I’m using a formal language is to feel whether it is hard to comprehend. I personally think formal speech is unbearable and interminable, and make audience feel there is a barrel for further communication between them and the speaker. Hence, it is understandable that a formal speech I give would need me type hundreds of words, and if the same meaning of that speech is used in informal speech, the data of word account would dramatically decrease.
Overall, many kind of tone of languages I encounter in my daily life, using internet language on-line, informal speaking with my friend, formal one toward my parents.
These are all about tones. Also, speaking English occurs my English classes, Mandarin is used in the rest of subjects and formal situation, and I also usually speak Sichuan accent, the local accent. In my opinion, the reason why there are so many kind of languages and tones is because of popularity, different situation and, environment you live in.
Myself
Hi everybody, it's the first time that I write blog in English. I suppose there would be some ambiguous words in my sentence hoping you can appreciate it, but I'll try my best to make my word clearly understandable. My family name Liu is the fourth largest family name in China, and my first name is Xiaoke(小可，in Chinese character）. Interestingly, although I'm a boy student, Xiaoke would sound like a female's name in Chinese. Why my parents would give me this unclear gender name? Actually, I used to have another first name Yilin(懿麟, in Chinese character）, despite that it only lasted few hours before my birth and was canceled during family discussion, because my parents were very afraid that I can't even write my own name until in elementary school. So they changed a simple one, Xiaoke, which in ancient Chinese means speaking "me" through a modest way, like thou equals to you in English I guess. I think I have already finished the assignment's minimum requirement, a single paragraph of at least 100 words, so that's the first blog for introducing me to you.
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