Cultural Difference You Might Notice
China represents eastern culture in many ways, and America where evolved as an immigrant country, gathered the essence of the western culture. So speaking of cultural differences, there are countless of them between the one I am from and the one I currently live in. I cannot summarize all the differences, but two that impress me the most: The habit of eating raw food, and the habit of making plans ahead of time.
Instead of cooked vegetables, Americans are more often to have salad. This is a huge difference because chinese people eat raw vegetables in very rare occasions. I cannot say that the chinese cook the vegetables in order to make them taste good or just simply want to get rid off the bacteria, because to cook the food is the fundamental rule for making chinese cuisine. By looking at the component of a salad, I can’t help thinking about whether the vegetables are washed or not. I personally observed that, unlike chinese people, americans tend to eat the fruit on the table such as an apple directly, unwashed. Ironically, although the chinese are picky about the sanitation of the food itself, many restaurants in china use gutter oil for cooking, and we are totally fine with that. I understand the reason that Americans eat raw vegetable if this way saves time and maintains the vitamin content.
Regarding the habit of making plans ahead of time, it is remarkably demonstrated when making doctor’s appointment and buying tickets for americans. I am not saying that chinese don’t make plans. We don’t need to call the doctor’s office, checking if the doctor is in the network of our insurance. We just go right into the hospital. I used to make appointment for my sister with a hospital, and the nearest date they can arrange the appointment was five months later. Unbelievable! This difference takes place because the disparity of population of the two countries. In China, we have more people in every position, thus we are more flexible in time. I noticed that americans usually make their plans for vacations at least half year earlier. A lot of tickets in this country have discount for early birds, and in China, we don’t have this advantages.
I try my best to get used to the culture and custom here. This is not my first year in USA but sometimes I still get astonished by the new culture difference I observed.
