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!