Differences in Western and Chinese values

The following statements prove that differences in values between Western countries and China are obvious.

The most noticeable difference is their attitudes towards money.

First, Westerners spend more than they have, so they are almost in debt. Chinese spend less or equal to the amount of money they have, so they always have money left in the bank for emergency.

Second, Western kids love to make money by themselves, while Chinese kids almost always ask money from their parents.

Third, Western parents think attending an expensive but prestigious college is useless. Chinese parents are willing to do everything to send their children to a good college even if it means that they have to sell everything they owe.

Besides, girls’ attitudes to their boyfriends are different.

Western girls are usually very straight-forward when expressing their love. They don’t use wicked tricks to get their boyfriends. Chinese girls are more implicit in their ways of expressing love. Usually, they wait for the other party involved for signs. Western girls don’t tolerate any mistakes that their boyfriends make while Chinese girls always suffer silently.

There are many differences in students’ attitudes towards school.

Firstly, Western girls are almost always involved in sports, dancing and sing groups while Chinese girls are almost always involved in academic and instrumental groups. Secondly, Western students think that grade B is a gift while Chinese students think that B is a death sentence. That is to say, Chinese students consider grade to be more important.

In addition, parents’ attitudes towards their kids are different.

Western people allow their daughters or sons to go out with their boyfriends or girlfriends as long as they come home at the certain curfew. Chinese parents usually don’t approve of their kids having relationship until college.

Western parents support and encourage their children all the time while Chinese parents think that criticism is the best love in the world. Western parents always look at their children’s good sides while Chinese parents seem to only see their children’s bad sides.

What’s more, teachers’ attitudes towards students are different.

Western teachers love everyone equally. Actually, they love bad students more than good students. Chinese teachers always favor the good students.

During parents meeting, Western teachers will always find good things to say to the parents, even to those with the worst grades, while Chinese teachers always tell the parents every single mistake that their children made in school.

As for individual striving, Westerners think highly of those people who get success by their hard work instead of relying on the family. In the west, you can also see the person in low profile, even though he is a relative of a successful person. But it’s just the reverse in China. Like the old saying goes “when someone gets the top, even his dogs and chicken get there too”, if somebody succeeds, his relatives can benefit a lot

from him.

When it comes to individual privacy, to Westerners, losing privacy means losing a part of body. They think the privacy is in relation to one’s basic dignity and

independence. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to share and be frank. In fact, they are more vigorous in work when they are “individual”. But in China, “privacy” just means “scandal”.

Last but not least, more than to help you choose, Westerners prefer to give you advice. It’s just like the same in the way parents teaching their children. One can be considered as a dawdler and a loser when he always depends on other’s choices ,while in China, most people are just waiting their “destiny’, and they are often tend to “take to the woods” when trouble comes.

I think the differences in Western and Chinese values are the comparisons of the individualism with collectivism. There are nearly 100 words in English have the

prefix “self-“, Westerners take “individual” seriously. Chinese are very collective and there is a large quantity of Chinese sayings appreciating team work, like “unity is power”. Chinese tend to pay more attention to cooperation which proves to be more effective than individual work. I can’t judge which sense of value is better, for it is obvious that both of them have their pros and cons.