High Culture - One meaning of "culture" is "high culture", by which we often mean the artistic tastes of a society's educated elite. This meaning of the word is important, especially in China, which has a long tradition of high regard for education and the culture of a people can be understood as a system of shared ideas and meanings, explicit and implicit, which a people use to interpret the world and which serves to pattern their behavior. This concept includes an understanding of the arts, literature, and history of a society, but also such aspects as attitudes, prejudices, folklore and so fort.
To get a more complete picture of culture, visit this site
You can also visit:
http://www.chinapages.com/culture/chinaviewold.htm,
http://www.chinaunique.com/culture.htm,
Critical Demographic, Social, and Historical Information about the Group
For a Chinese History Timeline (Clicking on the Chinese characters for each of the dynasty will bring up the list of the emperors/in Chinese/for each of the respective dynasty.)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cntoc.html
Expectations that students and parents have about schooling and their Community.
Education has played a major role in the growth and development of the Chinese Community in the United States, in China, and in any other country where there is an opportunity to acquire a higher level of education. Some parents have shared this comment, "China is better for the parents since there they know the language, customs, culture, and so on. But, America is better for their children since they havegreater opportunities to become successful and therefore improve the standard of living for theentire family."
To review a more extensive report of the expectations of students and parents in reference to schooling and community life, please select the following:
The PBS series, "Ancestors in America" has an excellent presentation of historical data on the early and recent immigration of Chinese and other Asians cultures to the United States. This historical narration also speaks to the ways in which the Chinese arrived in this country. To view videos, narration's, and music from that three part series, please click on the following:
At formal occasions, Chinese line up according to seniority, the seniors greeting first. Even when using interpreters, look at and address the senior person. Traditional greetings include a bow to show respect, and more recently, a handshake in formal situations. A common greeting is Ni hao ma? (how are you), or more informally, Chi le ma? (did you eat?). The response to the latter may be Mei yoh (not yet), or Chi le (have eaten).
Full titles are usually used in introductions for guests. Chinese names have the family name first, usually followed by one or two given names. Xian Sheng (Mr.) is used with the family name, but between very good friends Lao (old) and Xiao (young) might be used.
While formal occasions require announcement, informal and spontaneous visits are acceptable. Quiet, reserved, and polite speech is considered good conduct. Gifts such as chocolate, fruit, or wine are common among friends, but they are seldom opened until after the guests leave. Refreshments should be declined several times before accepting them.
Social activities often include cards, table games, Chinese chess, Mahjongg, tai chi (shadow boxing exercise) or discussion. Movies, theater, opera, ballets, gymnastics, and cultural monuments are also popular, during which there may be much discussion.
Topics often include personal experiences, travel, family, or business.
To say that the consumption of food is a vital part of the chemical process of
life is to state the obvious, but sometimes we fail to realize that food is more
than just vital. The only other activity that we engage in that is of comparable
importance to our lives and to the life of our species is sex. As Kao Tzu, a
Warring States-period philosopher and keen observer of human nature, said,
"Appetite for food and sex is nature."1 But these two activities are quite
different. We are, I believe, much closer to our animal base in our sexual
endeavors than we are in our eating habits. Too, the range of variations is
infinitely wider in food than in sex. In fact, the importance of food in
understanding human culture lies precisely in its infinite variability
-variability that is not essential for species survival. For survival needs, all
men everywhere could eat the same food, to be measured only in calories, fats,
carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. But no, people of different backgrounds
eat very differently. The basic stuffs from which food is prepared; the ways in
which it is preserved, cut up, cooked (if at all); the amount and variety at
each meal; the tastes that are liked and disliked; the customs of serving food;
the utensils; the beliefs about the food's properties -these all vary. The
number of such "food variables" is great.
CHINESE LANGUAGE, language of the Chinese, or Han, people, the majority ethnic group of China, including both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. Of China's more than 1 billion people, approximately 95 percent speak Chinese, as opposed to the non-Chinese languages-such as Tibetan, Mongolian, Lolo, Miao, and Tai-spoken by minorities. Chinese is also spoken by large emigrant communities in Southeast Asia, North and South America, and in the Hawaiian Islands. More people, in fact, speak Chinese than any other language in the world; English ranks second in number of speakers and Spanish third. As the dominant language of East Asia, Chinese has greatly influenced the writing systems and vocabularies of neighboring languages not related to it by origin, such as Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. It has been estimated that until the 18th century more than half of the world's printed books were Chinese. The General Characteristics, Language vs. Dialects issues, Development of the Language, Grammar, Written Chinese, and Methods of Transliteration can be reviewed on the following web site:
While Chinese and English have the highest number of users in the world, accounting for more than 30% of the population of the world, it has been assumed more often for Chinese than for English that there is a simple unity of language. Amongst the Chinese speech communities of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, for example, the members of each community easily recognize the distinct speech varieties of the other communities, because of the use of words, grammatical and stylistic features, traditional or simplified characters, when the text runs vertically or horizontally, from right to left or in reverse, and the printing fonts, and in terms of accents in spoken Chinese, including Mandarin. Chinese speaking travelers are readily baffled by practical problems sometimes when they visit other Chinese speech communities. One example is the word for taxi: Hong Kong uses (deksi), Beijing uses (dadi), Singapore uses (desi), and Taipei uses (jichengche). But the words are not frozen in space and time; Hong Kong's (deksi) has led to Beijing's (dadi), (miandi) "van taxi", (bandi) "rental cart", etc.
Traditional Social Structure: Throughout the centuries some 80 to 90 percent of the Chinese population have been farmers. The farmers supported a small number of specialized craftsmen and traders and also an even smaller number of land and office-holding elite families who run the society. Although they held land, which they rented to tenant farmers, they neither possessed large estates like European nobles nor held hereditary titles. These titles had to be earned by each generation, and since the examinations had strict numerical quotas, competition was fierce. Traditional Chinese thought combined an ideally rigid and hierarchical social order with an appreciation for education, individual achievement, and mobility within the rigid structure. More about China's traditional values based on the orthodox version of Confucianism you find on:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgibin/guery/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+cn0067)
Modern Chinese society and the Family: Very interesting article about changes in family life in modern China and supplemental material about divorce in Modern China on:
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chinwomn.html