Cultural Differences between China and America

Culture difference, a rather vague word to me who is a math major, is hard to talk about without giving it a formal definition. We should recognize that even within a same country, the cultures could varies greatly from regions to regions. For example, in China, almost every province has a dialect of its own, and people from different provinces won’t understand each other if they were speaking in their own dialects. So I want to make it clear that the following cultural differences that I’ll mention are between Chengdu, my hometown and the capital city of Sichuan province, which in a sense represents China, and UCSB, where I spent most of my time in America.

Someone may not know about Sichuan, but he (or she) is likely to have tried spicy Sichuan food once. Most Chinese restaurants in America at least have one Sichuan dish. There are famous Sichuan dishes like Mapo Tofu and Kung Pao Chicken. Used to the spicy food in Sichuan, I had a hard time struggling to get used to the sandwiches, tacos and burger here. There is also a difference between the beverages people would like to drink. Here in UCSB, people prefer coffee while in Chengdu, people prefer tea.

Another cultural difference I notice is the way that payments are made. In America, most payments are made through cards. However, in Chengdu, people now make most of their daily life payments through Zhifubao, which is very similar to Venmo and Paypal. However, the use of Zhifubao is much more common: people use Zhifubao when they are shopping, eating and transferring money. There is a joke saying that even the beggars now start to use Zhifubao because people no longer have cash in their pockets. Furthermore, Zhifubao is linked to Taobao, which is the Chinese Amazon, so even when people are shopping online, they are using Zhifubao.

The academic atmospheres between the universities are also quite different. In Chinese universities, not so many students focus on their studies. I’m not saying that they are not working hard, but rather than concentrating on their major, they are thinking how to get into a good company or make money when they graduate.

We should be aware that indeed cultural differences exist. We should respect different cultures and embrace the cultural differences.