A GUIDE BOOK FOR

andChinese

American

Iris Tian Charlotte Wilson

ContentChapter One: Difference 2-15

Chapter Two: Misunderstand 16-21

Chapter Three: Transformation 22-29

-What are things that you think China is different than America?-What are you interesting in Chinese and American culture?-Is there anything suprise you when you find out how much differences one country from another?

-How well you know another country if you have never been there?-The konwledge you get from TV, Internet, books, and other people, do you believe those are the truth?-Have you ever define someone based on your knowledge of the country he/she comes from?-Will you give up your interests to another country if there is one thing happened has disappointed you?

-Do you believe the power of a country and a society can change people?-Do you want to know how and what makes people transform and become a better person?-Are you ready for a journal about yourself?

Difference

• Currency • Copyright • Child Policy • Ethics • Religious • Education • Food • Family • Fashion • Government • Language • Marriage • Sport • Social Network • Time Zone

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4 5CURRENCY

-China uses “Yuan” as their money title, the common paper currency are 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, and 1. The money currency between America and China is $1=6.1216 yuan.

-Americans use a system called the dollar, which is divided into 100 cents. American change also includes the dime, nickel, and quarter.

Note: For example, one bottle of water in America costs $1, and in China cost 2 yuan, so if I use $1 to buy bottles of water, I can buy 3 bottles.

CopYRight

-In China, download music for free is legal, so do movies, videos, and books. People in China do not have a general knowledge of copyright, they aren’t aware of protect their own copyright, and also don’t know how serious it is to use other people’s work without permission or citation.

-In America, there are strict copyright laws. People have been prosecuted under law for illegally downloading music or movies. Yet many young people still download illegally. There is a strong sense of copyright among older generations but not the millennial generation.

ChiLD poLiCY

-In 1978, the Chinese government came up the “One Child” policy. It regulated that “One couple only allowed have one child.” This policy is based on the problem that sustainable growth of the population China is facing, it is getting hard and hard to make sure every citizen has medical insurance, every graduated student can easily get a job, every family is balance between income and outcome. In order to bring the development of economic and society into the same step as population increase, the government made the decision to carry out this policy. However, the policy is only regulating to family that are ethnic Han, and other minority is allowed to have more than one child. Moreover, have an abortion in China is also legal. If a family already has a child, and the wife happened to be pregnant again, the family has the opinion to either let the wife has the abortion, or they can pay a large amount money to the government as forfeit.

-There is no child policy in America. Americans are allowed to have as many children as they want. However, there is Child Services which will determine if parents or a household is not able to care for a child properly.

EthNiC

-China has 56 different ethnic groups, ethnic Han is the majority, took over 92% of the population. Different ethnic groups have different languages, different appearances, and different cultural background. Unlike ethnic Han, most of other ethnic groups only living in a certain area in China, such as ethnic Uygur lives in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, ethnic Manchu lives in Dongbei Province, and ethnic ethnic Yi lives in Yunan, Sichuan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

6 7-America has many different races of people. Caucasian people came from Europeans in British colonies. The Spanish also came into America. Native Americans were the indigenous people of North America. African Americans came as slaves but were emancipated in the 1800s. South Americans have come from the south. Irish and other races have come over time. America is considered a melting pot of cultures and races.

EDUCatioN

-China has the “Nine-year Compulsory Education” system. It regulate every child with right age has the duty to accept 9 years education, which is from elementary school to middle school. In China, elementary school has 6 years, middle school has 3 years, high school has 3 years, and college has 4 years. Regard to the tuition, it is differentiate by school district. For a example, my house address is included in School District A, and the school I go to is in School District B, so I have to pay a higher tuition than other students that their house address are included in School District B. After the 9 years obligation education, students have the opinion to choose either continue with school or stop. About 99% students choose to continue education to high school. The high school in China is hierarchical, it regulated by different levels according by the number of students that get accept by the top universities in China. The high school has the most students that get accept into the top universities, is consider as the number one high school. In order to select the students that are qualified for each high school, at the end of 9th grade, which is the last year in middle school, students have to take an exam to test whether they are good enough to go to those top

high schools. The exam usually has 8 subjects: Chinese, Math, English, Physics, Chemistry, History, Political Science and Physical Education. It is a one-chance opportunity, if student fail, they either have to go to a lower level school or they have to study for another year in middle school and retake the exam.

Same thing with student apply for college. The only difference is that the range for high schools is only inside of its province and the range for colleges is in the whole country.

RELigioUS

But the main religious China has are Buddhism, Taoism, and Christian. Also there are some ethnic groups believe in Islam. Therefore, China has a lot of temples instead of churches.

-America was partly founded on freedom of religion. Some of the main religions in America today include Catholicism, Judaism, and Christianity. Religion is separate from state.

-In China, most of the people do not have a religious, and the law regulates that for people under 18, it does not allowed to have a religious.

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-The education system in America involves both private and public schools. Public schools are open to individuals without cost while private schools cost thousands of dollars. In America, education is mandatory and state regulated until the child is 16. They must attend a certain number of days of school by law.

Then they do not have to go to school by law. However high school education is free to the public. College, even public universities, cost money however. In America, there are public and private universities.

After the first year in high school, student has to choose their studying area between liberal art and science. Liberal art is more focusing on literature education such as Chinese, history, and political science. And Science is more focusing on math, physics, and chemistry. However, both of the areas require students take all the classes and pass the high school exam to get a high school diploma. Chinese students spend most of their time at school during school year. Students go to school 8am in the morning and get off school at 5pm. There are 8-9 classes a day and almost every class has homework assignment that due the next day. So even students get off school at 5pm, they still have to spend hours to finish their homework assignments, by the time they finish, it’s already bed time or past the bed time. It didn’t get better on weekends, parents usually make their children to take extra class sessions outside of the school or hiring a tutor to help their kids’ study. All of these hard work and effort is for only one goal: get into a good college. I used to taught by my teachers and parents that if I don’t study hard enough, I won’t get into a good college, without a good college degree, I won’t get a job. 12 years of study for the one final exam to map out students’ future.

FooD

-Chinese food has a distant history. It has eight different cooking styles: Cantonese cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, Zhejiang cuisine, Fujian cuisine, Hunan cuisine, and Anhui cuisine. Each cuisine has different food styles and tastes. The International organization “Oxfam” did a research in 17 courtiers and from more than 600 different kinds of food styles, Chinese food listed as number 8 popular food styles in the world. Chinese food stresses five points: the dish’s color, the dish’s smell, the dish’s taste, the dish’s name, and the dish’s ingredient. As for cooking methods, Chinese food has 18 cooking methods, if list them details, it has more than 60 different kinds of cooking methods. Different region has different cooking styles and food preferences, some regions like food that are flavorful and spicy, some regions like food that are light flavorful and sweet. People live in the North region prefer noodle as their staple food, and the people who live in the South region prefer rice as their staple food.

-In America, a lot of people eat out at restaurants instead of cooking. Fast food is popular (on every exit of the highway). All kinds of food is popular: American (cheeseburgers/hot dogs), Italian, Chinese, Mexican, sushi etc.

A few decades ago, however, mothers and wives were expected to spend their days cooking and cleaning at home. Cooking is still an expectation of woman as a gender stereotype that is slowly being eliminated.

VS.

FaMiLY

-Chinese has the tradition that people should be dutiful to the elders, especially parents and grandparents. People insist that our parents gave us so much effort and care when we were young, and now they are getting older and older and we are getting stronger and stronger, it is our duty to take care of them until they pass away.

-In America, for the past fifty years, there has been an ideal of the “American dream”. It’s a mother, father, a daughter, and a son. Some families live up to this expectation and some do not. Some families have a single parent and some have same-sex parents. American families are varied. Family is still a strong value for Americans.

FaShioN

-Chinese fashion uses a lot of floral pattern, and bright colors on clothes. Because of Chinese people are small and thin, so a lot of fashion tastes come similar to Japanese and Korean fashion styles.

-Americans go through fashion phases every few years. It varies from the region and age group. NYC has a high fashion scene as do some of the other big cities. These cities are connected to the global fashion scene. Americans wear whatever they want, wherever they want. There is less judgment.

goVERNMENt

-The People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) established in 1949, it is a socialist country. The government unifies the systems of all the provinces, other than Hong Kong and Macao, every province in China follow the same political system and law system. The System of People’s Congress is the political system that China has, it represents that citizen has the most power in this country, each representative is select by all the citizens from different provinces and military. These representatives have the right to vote and change the government.

-The American government system is made up of three branches; the executive, judicial, and legislative. In theory they are intended to work in harmony but this is far from the case. Since a business has the same rights as an American citizen it is allowed to lobby its interests and give money to candidates. This means oil companies or whomever can pay what they want to lobbyists who convince the legislature to protect the monetary interests at the expense of the citizens interests. Unfortunately America only has two main political parties and they have to conform within each other to gain election. As a citizen I would rather see more independent candidates who actually have their own genuine beliefs, who don’t just say what their party tells them too. In all, business controls government in America more than most top developed countries in the world. Your McDonalds cheeseburger contains ingredients which are illegal in many of America’s allies.

America has a law and justice system that will prosecute criminals. Police officers roam the streets keeping an eye out for traffic violators and also on call for 911 calls. 911 is an emergency line for individuals who need police assistance right away.

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LaNgUagE

-Mandarin is the main language used in China, it is also official language of China. Other than mandarin, every region has its own local language; some of them have the different handwriting from mandarin, but most of the languages use the same handwriting as mandarin. Speaking mandarin we have the same 26 letters as English, but each letter has different pronunciation than English letters. Each Chinese character’s pronunciation is combined by different letters and separated by one of the four tones.

-The language use in America is English with accents varying from state to state and region to region. Some particularly famous and distinct accents include Southern, Californian, and New York.

MaRRiagE & WEDDiNg

-The Marriage Law in China regulate the legal marriage age for male is 22, and female is 20. It follows the monogamy system, stresses the gender equality and freedom of marriage. Chinese wedding used to be very regulated, the bride and the groom have to wear bright red Chinese old-tradition wedding clothes and the bride has to use a red handkerchief cover her face until the end of the wedding ceremony when all the guests leave and the groom can take the handkerchief from the bride’s head. Nowadays Chinese wedding is much more modern style. The bride will has her maid of honor, and the groom will has his best man. The wedding ceremony usually starts at noon, all the guests will come in and put cash gift to the receptionist, and walk into the room sit in rounded table. The ceremony has the general procedure such as saying vow, exchange rings, and kiss at

the end. After the ceremony, the guests will start eating and chatting with other guests, and the bride and the groom will come out in a different set of clothes and start giving toast to every guest that in the room. The entire wedding usually takes about 3 hours.

Weddings are the bride and groom’s choice. Anything is possible. Some couples get married in Las Vegas, others in a courtroom before a judge, and others in a church.

Bridal showers and bachelor/bachelorette parties are also commonplace in American weddings. They both celebrate the end of the groom or bride’s single life.

Wedding registration is when an American bride and groom choose gifts they would like their wedding guests to give them. They often do it at a few stores. Typical gifts include kitchenware.

-Americans have become more relaxed about marriage and divorce in the past twenty years. Most Americans are getting married later and there are more divorces as well.

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SpoRt

-Basketball is a very popular sport inChina, especially around teenagers. There is no football or baseball in China, so Chinese people often watch NBA, the World War Cup and the Olympics. Unlike American, Chinese people is not crazy about the sports and games, so there is barely have parties or discussion about sport in China except for the Olympics and the World War Cup season.

-Sports is a large source of revenue in American business. This is a both constant and consistent growing business sector. The NBA is projected to double their existing annual TV contract money this year when they renew it. American sports have countless mediums to gain revenue; TV time, clothing, tickets, events, concessions, fan memorabilia ( especially high profit margins in college sports ), and even in the form of youth camps. It is a culture where people must participate in it to feel involved, and by doing so are giving money to somebody.

SoCiaL NEtWoRK-There are a couple different social networks that are very popular in

China today. The people live in China don’t have the access to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. But they do have something similar to those. Wechat is the newest social network app came out in Chinese market couple years ago. It can send out text, picture, Emoji, and even voice message to other people that are using the same app. Renren.com is a very popular social network website that similar to Facebook; people post status, pictures, videos and articles. Weibo is another popular social network that similar to Twitter, it has limitation of the text for each post and most of the Chinese celebrities are using it. QQ is the earliest social network tool China had. The way QQ works is like Skype, but with more functions.

tiME ZoNE

-China only uses one time zone for the entire country, which is UTC+8. And also the time does not change along with the season changes. Compare to the summer time in New York City, there is a 12 hours difference between China and New York City, and China is 12 hours faster than New York City.

-America uses 9 different time zones: Atlantic Standard Time, Eastern Standard Time, Central Standard Time, Mountain Standard Time, Pacific Standard Time, Alaskan Standard Time, Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time, Samoa Standard Time, and Chamorro Standard Time.

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-Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, these are the most popular social

networks in America. People use them to connect with friends and family, follow different kinds of people, post their status, pictures and feeling. These social networks are also the best tools use for profession field, advertising promotion, and business publicity.

Missassumption

How do Americans think about China?How do Chinese think about America?Right or wrong?Let’s find out.

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american think China is ...But the fact is...

Misassumption Fact

All Chinese people are smart.

Chinese people did not born with smartness, the reason that American think all the Chinese people are smart is just the education level in China especially science subjects is higher than American compare with the same grade. So maybe you take algebra in 11th grade, but in China’s 11th grade, the students already start to learn advanced calculus.

Chinese people are very rich, all the International students from China come to U.S. have fancyexpensive cars.

Most of the family in China are not rich or super wealth. Some of the international students may do come from a pretty wealth family, but not every student from China do. The reason a lot of Chinese students choose to buy fancy and expensive cars is because the prices of the exact same car people buy in China and in U.S., are a lot different. Let’s assume a BMW X5 in U.S. costs around $50.000, but in China the same BMW X5 costs around $210.000, there is fortyfold price difference between. Chinese people consider the BMW in U.S. has cheap and reasonable price. That’s why most of the International students from China drive fancy cars.

Misassumption Fact

China is becoming more powerful and going to beat America.

Some Americans are concerning about the growth of China and worry it will become a threat to the U.S., which is not true. In recent years, China did have a great development and the economy is also continue increasing; however, the two countries don’t have a major interest or a hidden problem in conflict. Moreover, the two countries’ economies are each independent, there is no confliction between these two countries, not even to mention China will become a threat to the U.S.

All the news about China are negative.

It is not just China have the most of negative news, a lot of countries do. The new publication needs something that can grab readers attention, especially for international news. Peaceful, happy and harmonious news are not “catchy” enough for a front page header, so the newspaper and publication usually publish things about natural disaster, terrorist bombing, and regulated law breaking to get readers’ attention.

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Chinese think america is ...But the fact is...

Misassumption FactFactMisassumption

American is a very dangerous country, there are always gunshots, criminals, and drug trade happen in U.S.

American people careless about family.

American are very racial discrimination.

American has an open-minded attitude towards sex.

A lot of Chinese know that American allows to have their own gun and there are violence, murders, drug trades happens all the time, so they consumed that America is a highly dangerous place. But the fact is none of a country can avoid criminal phenomenon happens, and in order to get the permission of owning a gun, it need serious steps and application progress to testify if you have the right to own a gun. There is not a single state in America that is legal for drug trade, drug trade is strictly prohibited by law.

American actually really cares about family, they have a strong attachment to the family. There are a lot of activities that American do are around family, camping, vacation, family dinner. Unlike Chinese people focusing family as “house”, American emphasis family as actual “family”, family member has a close relationship with each other.

Indeed, America did have a history of slavery and discrimination. However, they fixed the problem and eliminated the humiliation. In America, racial dis-crimination is a very serious topic and a critical crime about discrimination. In fact, America can be name as the country has “the most ethnics and the most cultural backgrounds country” in the world.

This misassumption most likely came with those Hollywood movies that show people America is a open-minded sex country. But the fact is that only 2% of married American have a sex partner outside of the family, more than the half of American are honestly to their other half and follow the mo-nogamy policy.

Transfermation

This is a story.This is a journal.This is a life experience.This is my story+my journal+my life experience

Now I am sharing with you. -iris tian

I am native Chinese and I grew up in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China. I lived in a big city, but in a less popular, famous province. Xinjiang province officially called by “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”, it is an autonomous region of China. We are located in the northwest of the country, there are mountains, deserts, and lakes around us. In China, we have 56 different kinds of ethnic groups. Just in Xinjiang, we have 13 majority ethnic groups living in this beautiful place. Even though I lived in a big city, I consider myself as a girl who belongs to the prairie. I spent most of my childhood on the prairie, running horses, countless trees, clean sky, and welcoming people, all these are the best memories I had while I was growing up.

I left home when I was 16 and came to United States. It wasn’t my first choice. I have a cousin who is 2 years older than me. She is studying high school in Sydney, Australia, so my parents were planning to send me to where she was and study over there for the rest of my education. The original planning was irresolute by an exchange program happened to select the top 10 students in my school to have the opportunity to go to another country for a full school year. Of course, America was the top choice. I ended up choosing America. After I made my decision, I started my fantasy about America. In the movie, the students don’t have to wear a set of old ugly school uniform; they don’t have those ridiculous school policy for them to follow, they always have free time other than school and studying for quizzes. Those are the things that probably will never happen in China. Well, at least in my generation.

Before I was sent to Holland, MI, a small town nearby Grand Rapids and next to the lake Michigan, I spent one week in New York City with some of the other exchange students from other countries, I was the only student from Asia. However, I managed a deep profound relationship with the rest of the students in only just one week. The last day, we hugged each other and gave our best wishes to each other, and then we separated and took off to different places in this big country. I have not seen them since, but it is a beautiful memory saved in my life book.

Holland is a small, quiet, beautiful country town. Compared to New York City, it is a upside down world. Caucasians are the majority, probably 1/4 Mexican, and there was only one African American student in my school. When it comes to the final analysis, I was the only Chinese person, not only in my school, but in the district. Life was never easy, especially when you have to speak a language that you are not fluent in, in order to make a connection with the community you are in. I had a hard time making true friends and keeping up my grades at school. Anyhow, I fixed those hard cores with my strong heart, determined mind, and optimistic smile. I started to transform into a brand new person, someone that was brave, tough, independent, and know what she wants in her life, someone that I am happy with it.

During that year, I didn’t get too much chances to connect with my parents, due to the time differences, and some policies were send out back home by the government that there was no Internet connection or international phone call access in my hometown during the year. Homesick happens to everyone, and so it happened to me. Especially during that time I struggled and there is no way to actually talk to my parents, I used the old ancient way and I wrote my parents letters. It usually took up to ten days to deliver the letter to my parents’ hands. But still, I had a chance to share my frustration with other people who cared about me.

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The last night I stayed in Holland, I held a movie night / goodbye party at the house. I was extremely sad. I didn’t have the excitement that I finally got to go home after ten months away from my family. In fact, it was the opposite, I didn’t want to leave. I had too many great experiences and unforgettable memories here. The people here treated me like family. I learned everything about America I did not know when I came here. They helped me grew and build, they made become the person that I wished to be. Holland is my home in U.S. I spent one month at home and one month in Beijing taking TOEFL classes for college preparation. One month at home wasn’t that long, I spent most of my time meeting with family and friends, enjoying the tasty food and riding horses on the prairie. I let myself surrounded by nature. After I came home from U.S., the most popular question I faced was “Do you like America? Do you want live there after school?” At that time, only 10 short months studying in the U.S. didn’t make me have the resolution to say that I wanted to stay in America after I finished with school. So I said, “I like America, but I don’t want to live there after.” I expected people would ask me that question again and again, so I took that question with me when I returned to the U.S.

My second home in the U.S. is a beautiful coastal city nearby San Francisco, California. Alameda was a navy military based island, and after was ended, those soldiers didn’t want to leave this beautiful island, so they settled their home in Alameda. California and Michigan are two very different states. California is a melting pot; it is mixed with people from different countries sharing different cultures. Chinese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Filipinos, African Americans, all compared with my high school back in Holland, the school in Alameda had the least population of Caucasians.

I had a difficult time adapting to my life in Alameda. I faced a stingy host family, “unfriendly” students, and scary homeless at Bart station. I wasn’t feeling comfortable at the first couple months. Thanks to my previous year experience I had in the U.S., I was much more mature and confident in dealing with different situations and solving all the problems I had to face. I joined my school’s basketball team, became the captain of the team, and lead my team to every single win. I met my lifelong best friend Chelsea in my English class; she was a GTF, just graduated from UCLA with a BA degree in history. We have a lot in common, we hang out all the time, and her family treated me as one of their children. I met my mentor in my digital science class, Diana Kenney; she was the best teacher I had through high school. All those people have given me the power to break through my obstacles, give me the support to fight challenges, and give me the courage to believe in myself that I can do whatever I envision.

Two and half years of high school study in the U.S. made me think things differently than my parents, see things from a different perspective, and do things in a different way. That’s when the problems occurred. Here is a couple examples I had:

• I had a hard time explaining to my parents that students playing sports on a school team is a usual thing in the U.S., and students do get injured sometime during games, but my parents believed the game is too “professional” for me, and they didn’t want me to end up with a broken leg.

• I can never make my parents think that “a gay couple being together is an okay thing.” 2726

• I don’t know how I can translate “project” to my parents well-enough to let them understand that is actually what I’ve been doing at school instead of those boring texts, quizzes, short answer questions I had to do back in China.

• I get annoyed very easily every time when my mom asks me whether the birthday party that I went to is a “Chinese” party or a “American” party.

• I am afraid to tell my parents that I have tattoos because I know they literally will jump on the plane and will fly over here to yell at me.

• I had a long-term argument with my parents about switching my major to advertising instead of business. Even if I won at the end, I still have to take business as a minor as a deal.

• It is not an easy task for me to explain to my parents about why tuition increases every year, and why I have to work my ass off to have enough of my paycheck at the end the month in order to pay my living expenses. • It is nearly possible to let my dad understand it is extremely hard to get a GPA that is over 3.8 when I am in college, even though I had a 4.2 GPA in high school.

• It bothers me every time when I was really excited telling my mom something that happened in school and how great my classes and teacher are, and my mom asks me “Will it be easy to find a job with your major?” Seriously, mom? Everyone is having trouble finding a job nowadays.

The longer time I live in U.S., the less common I have with the people back home. I don’t know what I should talk about with my friends back home. I don’t know what is popular there. I somehow can’t stand the fact that some of them are wasting money and time during their college life. I have to admit that there has been a gap built up between us.

I just turned 20 in the last few months, but most people think I am 21 or 22, even 23. I am not saying that my face looks older than my actual age, it is just I’ve been living by myself for a long time; I have to rely on myself. I’ve been through a lot of challenges, struggles, and problems, so the way I think and the way I handle problems looks more mature than other people who are the same age as me. I am proud of it. Studying and living in America is like a dream come true for me. This country is like a big mystery island. It has so many interesting places, cultures, and people living in it, and I am like a stubborn wired explorer, keep my eyes open and digging into those beautiful interesting stories. My friends describe me as “Americana”, meaning I may not have the perfect English, may not have a American “face”, but I definitely have a American heart.

I am grateful to my parents, even if we argue sometimes between different ideas and concepts, but they’ve always been there for me, they’ve always been the biggest supporters in my life. Without their love and care I would never go this far and became who I am today. I love them with all my heart.

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