Hsuan-Chun Hung(Dora) Different Values between America and Taiwan

Culture is the most important thing to show the uniqueness of a country. It represents a country. And it’s impossible for a country to exist without a culture. There are a lot of cultures in the world, and there are some differences and some similarities between every culture. I’m going to compare the differences of values between America and Taiwan.

Now I’m in America, and the culture of America is really different from my country, Taiwan. The difference of geography is maybe one of the reasons that really make the two cultures so different. For example, America is western and Taiwan is eastern. I found not only some materials such as clothes and buildings are different, but also the way of how American people thinking are really different from Taiwanese. First, individualism is one of the most important things of Americans. This is really different from Chinese or Taiwanese people. Taiwanese people pay much attention to “the group”. It’s important to be with family, and there’s no secret between family members in most of Taiwanese family. To unite is really important for Taiwanese people.

Second, Americans show their opinion easily and strongly in the class, or in a meeting, even in the daily life. But Taiwanese just shut up when teachers ask, “Any question?” Furthermore, when a teacher asks a question to the class and says, “Any volunteer?”And everybody just silence in the class in Taiwan. Taiwanese are not good at expressing their own opinion in public. They think it’s embarrassing to show their opinion in public, and if they have a lot of opinions, other Taiwanese may consider he or she likes to be popular.

Third, there’s something different from the value of American parents and Taiwanese parents. American parents won’t force their children to study or do anything; they think children should management their own time by themselves. Children are responsible for themselves. But in Taiwan, parents force children to go to cram-school, to study hard, and even oversee children whether they are working hard on study or not. They just want children to study, study, and study so that children would find a good job in the future. This is what Taiwanese parents think about the value of their education to children.

I think all the values of each country have their own meaning about what this country’s people think. It’s their culture. Sometimes it is good; sometimes maybe it is bad, however. Anyway, everyone should respect others culture. Even a small family has their own culture. We just can’t live without culture.