Now and again I try to share some views of the West from a Chinese perspective in an attempt to balance things out here. This one comes thanks to the Library of Unwritten books, a UK project where anyone can submit an idea for a book they would like to publish. This one is written by Ming-He Yang who proposes a book about 'Real British Life' for Chinese readers who are interested in learning about life in the West. In this book she would explain some cultural differences based on her own experience of moving from China to England in the late 80s. Here she covers the key topics of tea, pubs and historical homes;
"I didn't even know what a bar was til a colleague said "Oh we will go out for a drink". I found it very strange. The pub is like a teahouse in China. ... people sitting around talking..."
"And afternoon tea! When you are first invited to go to an English family they say 'Come to our home for afternoon tea. But oh! It's so heavy! It's not only tea."
"Chinese like modern houses very, very much but here they keep the original. If it is one hundred, two hundred years old, people are proud of it, but the Chinese are not. They like everything new and modern."
Pretty good benchmarks for cultural segmentation to be honest, alcoholic/non-alcoholic key social space, tea consumption and old/new home preference. I can feel a plannerish Venn Diagram coming on...
4 comments:
Mmm, lovely post. A couple of links spring to mind as a result. First is http://indexed.blogspot.com/ which is kind of ven-diagrammy and fun (although the older posts are more subtle...). But also the infamous Passport to the Pub, http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html - which is essentil reading for non-Brits (and a way for Brits to finally articulate a stange set of rituals seemingly imprinted on the genes).
That passport to the pub is just excellent, I remember that now, a snap shot of British culture at its most profound! now looking at the venn diagram site but as its now blocked may be more difficult.
sucess! and though slightly hampered by the german porn ads that come with the proxy server I can see indexed ok. genius. i will now pass it on as my discovery.
And something similar is?
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