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Which is better, eastern or western culture? A friend of mine asked me the other day if I thought western culture is better than eastern culture and to be honest I was a little shocked at the question. Pondering the question for a moment I had to reply that neither culture is better or worse. I tried to impress on my friend that differences of culture should be embraced and that neither culture is better than another, just different. Enjoy the differences and learn to integrate into a host country if you are a visitor or expat. Many westerners believe that all cultures should conform to the western style of living and civility as some think. Who are we as westerners to dictate the norms of society. Heck the good old US of A is not really that good a model for "normal" social interactions and behaviors to be sure. And with my experiences with European and other Asian cultures we all have our good and bad points. What are your thoughts about western ethnocentric behaviors and expecations? |
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There are many cultures here, some good and some not good, there is pockets of bigotry of every sort and undercurrents of many elements of racism. We have a legal system and government which had laws to promote equality, but we have the ignorance of various cultural groups that promote the bigotry, racism and such things. We are not as friendly to foreigner as many foreigners are to us when we vist their country. We get tripped about peoples names, if it is not Jack and Jane and etc. We have many business that destroy themselves from greed, we have a system where we allow a wild Wall Street to Dupe solid companies into over leveraging themselves based on exaggerated stock trading, which has absolutely nothing to do with the actual performance of productions and sales. We are a nation that never got over the thirst for slave labor and indentured servant wage labor. We are quick to go into denial and we have a culture of selective amnesia.. We don't respect the cultural architecture, and we let things crumble and become dilapidated. We allowed a whole history of industrialist investments in amazing structure in every city decay into blight. Detroit as an example.' We have become too ignorant to known that industry builds countries... But we understand it when we are running around the globe looking for cheap labor and using the ideal of industry building nations, while here in the US, we ignore the same rule and outsource, sell off and allow excessive exaggerated trading destroy otherwise historical companies. We lack what it takes to become a 2000 or more year old nation that leads. We may not even make it to being 1000 yrs old except as a has been nation that was once a dominant empire. We have so many Anti government people, who are ignorant to the fact that American exist and prosper because of its form and structure of governance... yet we detest being governed... but we like that the structure is designed to allow so much, but we want to run will and have no governance when it comes to us personally. We are like a foolish teenager, chasing every fad and throwing away things which we don't understand their value. We have many problems but so much denial, we can't fix the problems because we are too quick to be in denial... We are not the Post WWII superpower, We are not the leader that we think we are, when 65% of our GDP is derived from pushing paper. We have 30 billion a MONTH trade imbalance with China, and yet China is only the number 3 trading partner with the US... but China has the number one slot when it comes to saturating the markets with Chinese goods, The claim of Canada and Mexico as being number 1 and 2 is a matter of denial mentality not facing the fact that China is the real #1 trading partner and that partnerships is so out of balance it may never correct itself, because greed will continue to outsource even more to China, as our infrastructure crumbles while Chinese super-sizes their infrastructure with solid building .... Technically, even in war powers except for nukes, we are lacking, China's standing Army is so vast it dwarf our tremendously. As to who is best, East or West... is an indeterminable question.
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11/6/2013 9:15 am |
Hmm interesting perspective, I think you are saying that the US doesn't have a specific culture, but style and civility are governed. I guess I can see how the government tries to manage civility through making and enforcing laws, but to say the US doesn't have a culture is a bit of a stretch. While I agree that the US is mainly a mixture of cultures that is essentially my point. We accept multi-culturalism here in the US, but I know many instances where westerns go to a host country and expect the host country culture to change to accommodate the guest. The point of this blog is to relish and embrace the differences and not try to impose a different (foreign) point of view on a host country's culture.
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11/8/2013 4:07 pm |
It seems you are overthinking my premise. However, if you think there is no distinction between eastern and western thought and cultural norms then we shall agree to disagree.
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When i fly back after working away i just love the smell of bush and the scent of the eucalyptus trees I know I'm home.
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Hello Pinkcrystal iron ore for china
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Hi Mark Scouse
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