The stronger, more stronger

The stronger, more stronger

“Please pass me the ball!” the words lingered in my heart for thousand times. I play basketball almost everyday in the Student Recreation Center and I meet so many Americans who are so tall and strong. It is said that Americans are good at basketball and they play skillfully. So I am eager to play with them and learn how they preform in the game.

One day, I came the basketball court early and they haven’t begun the game because of a lack of people. So I seized the opportunity and joined them. They were friendly apparently and treated me as a good friends who often plays with them.

Before long, we have gotten 10 people to start the game. The way of dividing us into two groups was shooting 3-pointer and the first five who got the goals should be divided into one group. In China, I have never seen this way, we want to equalize the strength of two groups which can make the game more suspenseful and competitive. But in America, it is normal to make the better players together. Maybe they believe that the stronger should stand by one side and preform bigger power and the weak should try their best to beat the stronger, or they will never win the game.

I remembered a professor in Yale says that: ”Justice is what the stronger say it is.” Americans worship the stronger and power, they will seldom consider the weak although they show friendly to them apparently and give them some bonus to encourage them. But they will never change the rules and regulations that are unfavorable to the weak.So in America, if you are the weak one, you will be difficult to live in this society although they are friendly and always smile to you. To be the strong one, gain the position in the society and then you can talk about justice.

The passion of talking story

The passion of talking story

I found it interesting that Americans are keen on telling stories to foreigners(I don’t know that whether it is the same to treat the Americans themselves). And they are friendly to foreigners,  too.

Yesterday when I went into the restroom, a plumber was repairing the tap. He was working seriously and didn’t notice me. I came up and asked him how serious the tap was. He stopped and said lots of terminology of the work he done and I could hardly to catch up with him and just nodded, said “wow, it is cool!”

At that time, he seemed to fall in his world of job, which he has done for 15 years. When I was ready to go back to my room, he asked me some questions about our summer programs. I answered with short words, because I could not say something more by my poor English. I only could use simple words to describe my feeling about the first trip to America, such as “great”,”cool”,”funny”,”enjoy”and etc. And then, he began to talk about his family. “I have a Japanese wife, a children at 29 years old. My wife often makes sushi at home and I like it so much！Do you think so? Have you ever ate the sushi? If you have not, I would like to invite you to my home to eat dinner!” “Oh, I ate it, I like it so much, too.” I didn’t know how to response his invitation, so I just escape this topic. “I feel proud of my son. He work as a sell man and make 10 thousand dollars per year. He graduated from Miami University, and his major is healthy care. And after graduating, he wanted to do something he like and lucky enough, he found his talent in selling cars. So he did it, and succeeded!” From the his face, I can see the pride in his son and the love to his family. He wanted to share his happiness to me.

At that time, I can not only experience how friendly he is, but also see the quality of equality in his life. In America, people are willing to share his/her happiness to others and others can feel happy and positive. Maybe it is different from China. In China, people don’t like to show their achievement to others because it is easy to arise the envy and jealousy.

And now, I have a question! How to talk with the friendly Americans?

The preconceptions and stereotypes

  The preconceptions and stereotypes

The preconceptions and stereotypes can interfere the communicators with objective viewing of stimuli. It will be interesting that observing the American stereotypes on China.

Maybe the American who have not been to China may draw the picture of China through the newspapers, magazines, books, movies and etc. It maybe stop at the time of cold war, it maybe mix up China and North Korea. When I drink coffee in the Starbucks, some American said to me: “Enjoy the great coffee in America, when you go back to China, there is no chance!” It is ridiculous and even ignorant. In China, Starbucks can be seen in so many cities and we can enjoy the coffee all the time.

And when playing basketball, some Americans even believe that China is a poor country in the world and many people cannot have a meal for a day which is similar to Africa(maybe the African will not disagree with this statement). When talking about the democracy, Americans may say that those people cannot keep thinking because they are controlled by the authority. Oh...I am sorry to hear that. That is absolutely not right. The usage of internet is popular in China, and we gain knowledge from all over the world, we make progresses in every aspect including politics.

I think the teacher of America maybe have some preconceptions on us, too. Chinese students are not active and creative, they are stiff in academic. May be it is just because we do not accustomed to the methods of teaching and we are so poor in English that we cannot communicate and express ourselves freely.

So just do not judge one person in other culture easily.

Blog one: American Value 1

Blog one: American Value 1

For the whole time of my study in China, I have heard the American Value more than once from the textbooks, movies, masterworks, medias, and TV programs. Why American? Why don’t we talk about British Value or Australia Value? Even we are more interesting about American Value than China Value among the peers I meet everyday. But why? Is the American Value superior to other countries in the world? I try to find the answers to this question but yet no answers I saw could persuade me. So the first thing I should do is exploring American Value, and this is why I came here this summer.

I don’t want to talk about the values that are familiar with us such as equality and action orientation, because they are printed in every American and are well-known by the other countries. However I find some interesting phenomena that seldom happen in China, and it is called self-help control.

I cannot see how the self-help control present during the growth of a person, but I actually find it in many aspects of daily life in America. When I firstly ate lunch in Armstrong in Miami University Ohio, I noticed that if we bought a cup of drink, then the waiters would give us a cup and we could use the drink machine to get whatever we want to drink. And for the first time I don’t know how to use it, the waiters might come to help me, but latter, I should do it by myself. It maybe a common thing in America but for us it is completely a new rule. Some students of us mistreated it as the free drink supply and they just use their bottles to take the drink. It is embarrassing. In addition, I noticed that some students might take the wrong or strange drink and just pour the drink to the trash bin. Even when a student finish his drink, he passed on his cup for another student, and the cup was passed through many students.

That will be three things to discuss: responsibility, independence and honest.

Responsibility is on others, you should take on the responsibility on yourself. Because self-help control requires you to take serious thinking before you do, the decision is depended on you. So if the bad effect comes out, you should undertake all the things caused by you. If the food is tasteless, you deal with it, if the drink is tasteless, you deal with it, if you ask too little meal when waiter ask you in Harris Hall, you deal with it.

Independence is the same meaning as the responsibility. You decide what to eat only by yourself and it is your own business.

Honest requires you to stick to the rule set by the restaurant. The restaurant gives you freedom to do by yourself and that maybe some bug in their rules. What you should do is respecting the rules they set. You shouldn’t take some food when you don’t pay it and etc.

That is what I think when eating dinner.

The next blog I will write about the preconceptions and stereotypes of the intercultural communication in my daily life. That will be interesting!