Chapter 4_Reflection_Yoyo

  I really enjoyed reading this chapter. I thought what the author said about the individualist and collectivist cultures are so interesting and real. China is no doubt a collectivist country, while the U. S. is individualist. Actually, I’ve learned about the differences of collectivist and individualist cultures between China and America before I came here. Staying in the U.S. for more than a month, I just found that what I’ve learned in that class is so true and I can really experience those differences here. In the followings, I’d like to give a simple example of the culture differences that I found at school.

  At school, I notice that America students are more individualist than Asian students. In collectivist culture, students seldom speak up even the teacher put a question to the class. Students who speak up would be thought that they want to be different from the group and this behavior is not so appreciated for group members. Moreover, students feel embarrassed and shame to ask questions in class as they think those questions may be too stupid and they will “lose face”. However, I found that the class atmosphere is totally different in the America. Students here are just so eager to speak up their opinions or personal experiences even they are not relevant to the questions that the professor puts on the class. They are not hesitated to answer and raise questions. Also, there’s one thing I found interesting is that all the classes I am taking here have discussion classes besides normal lectures. In my home university, there are no such discussion classes besides lectures. Most of classes are professor-oriented in which that they speak for the whole 3 hours without too many interactions and exchange of opinions. Personally, I appreciate more the American style of teaching. I’d say I am so lucky that all the courses I am taking here are interesting and all the professors are so nice. And I found that there are some differences between the American and Asian professors that I met so far. The American professors tend to stress more on class interaction, like asking questions and hearing opinions from the students. They always appreciate and respect students’ opinions by saying the words like “good”, “right”, “yes”, even those opinions or answers are not consistent with what they think. However, I met some Asian professors who do not have such attitudes. Students who speak up or argue the opposite opinions to the teachers would be thought that they are challenging to the professors and such behaviors are not polite! Here, I am not trying to say individualist culture is better than collectivist culture. In fact, I’d say culture can’t be distinguished extremely as good or bad because every culture has its two-sides, either good or bad. What I think is that we should know about those differences and respect other cultures even we don’t really like it.