Christmas and Chinese New Year: A Comparison

I always have enjoyed Christmas time, it is a time to relax, drink, eat and be merry! with all your family. There is no other day in the year quite like it in the west. However, in China, Chinese New year is a similar concept too. But here are some key differences.

Difference 1: Wealth vs Peace, Love and Joy

At Christmas time,  ‘Merry Christmas’ or a ‘Happy Christmas.’ are common wishes expressed. People also wish you joy, peace and harmony. In China it is different.  Gong xi fa cai (or in Cantonese, Gong Hei Fat Choi) in Chinese means to wish you success and wealth in your life. Chinese society is more fixated on money and wishing people wealth in the new year is very common. 
Its also common for Chinese people to clear old debts and rid themselves of all things bad to start the new year afresh. Buying new clothes is also very common too. For westerners at Christmas, the focus is more on resting and relaxing to enjoy the Christmas holiday and then go to clearance sales in the shops afterwards.

2) Difference 2: A relaxing Christmas vs A Bustling Chinese New Year

Christmas is generally supposed to be a relaxing festival. However, Chinese New Year is the opposite. Inviting large groups of friends and family to your house is normal during the Chinese New Year holiday. In Chinese it is called re nao which roughly translated means to be bustling with noise and an exciting environment and atmosphere. Although Christmas can be chaotic and busy, such as when preparing Christmas dinner for the family, the gatherings are no where near as large and the evenings are commonly spent relaxing with a few drinks and some cold meat sandwiches leftover from Christmas dinner.

3) Difference 3: Comparisons in Chinese New Year and Christmas gifts

The gifts given during Christmas and Chinese New year are totally different too. At Christmas, gifts can be wide ranging, from toys, sweets, or whatever the latest technology or cool thing is, to something as boring as socks! The point is the thought that counts, not the gift, or the size of the gift (as I was told as a little child!)In China, children receive hong bao, a red envelope, which is given to them by many Chinese parents during the new year. It is just as exciting for the children to receive these red envelopes however, but the focus is again on money as mentioned in the first point.The other point is that Christmas gifts are for all the family at Christmas, even grandparents, where as in China, hong bao is only for little children up to the age of about 18, after which time, it should be they who give the next generation of children their hong bao!

I'm sure there are many other good comparisons to be made, and I would love to hear some of them! I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a wonderful new year in 2014!

Why I do buy all that 'peace, love and understanding' talk!

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding, imagine all the people living life in peace and in one world. These sentiments that are branded around freely are constantly the subject of satire and cynicism from people, but I truly believe in peace, love and understanding between us all, it could happen, in fact I believe its easier to let it happen than not to, and I hold strong hopes that we as world citizens will join together increasingly in the future. After all, most if not all would like to live without fear of war's and ironically it is in all of our collective hands, whether that can happen or not.

Misunderstandings are so common between people, if we had the ability to see things from other people's perspective, it would indeed be a peaceful world, but of course we are emotional beings and naturally conflicts will happen that don't follow such rationalist lines. However, I believe that it is more a case of better exposure and more organically that can increase the likeliness of understanding conflicts and the reduction of emotional and ignorant hate between us. Stereotypes are commonly built up because we generalise behaviour among certain types of people, ethnicities and cultures that are then used to form an opinion. Nowadays, these stereotypes are fast becoming old, and the younger generation now emerging are getting exposed increasingly to different cultural artefacts. The result I believe is that it is increasingly creating more open minded and aware people. The reason why I believe it is occurring now is because world wide communication through internet is available to more people across the world and is accessible to people from a young age. Travelling is cheaper and people are more inclined to go further away from their home country and their continent to really experience something new and different. It is commonly believed that things you learn when you are younger stick with you more easily easier as you get older, so the exposure to languages, culture and the different ways of every day things around the world, could make you a more tolerant person with the ability to understand different ways of thinking about things, just subconsciously!

As I have stated in previous blogs, learning a language is a great way to identify your own culture's customs and habits and realise more about the way other cultures do things that are different. From my own experiences and culture shocks, I suddenly asked myself the question "what is the right way to do these things, how should I talk to people, what is the best etiquette in formal and informal situations?". I didn't know it was done this way in Country X, maybe that's why there is so much misunderstanding with this ethnic group in my own country? These realisations are hard to articulate in words, but as the saying goes if we listen instead of talk, we might realise and understand more. But it also goes further than just speaking foreign languages, its the exposure to foreign arts and culture that can make us more intelligent and thoughtful towards each other. As an example, English speaking music has been popular in foreign countries for many years, but increasingly foreign pop music is coming to English speaking countries, such as Korean and Chinese Pop music that increasingly opened people's minds to music being expressed through different languages and cultural norms.

(For further understanding of how the arts is contributing towards better understanding between people in the world, I would highly recommend readers to listen to the Chinese pop singer, Wang Lee Hom's, speech that he gave at Oxford University this year.)

The ways of doing business has also been influenced by foreign ways too. Whilst the industrial revolution was a concept that emerged from the west and changed the way of thinking by the east, vice versa, the efficient manufacturing and organisation methods pioneered by the east, the Japanese, has had a great influence on the west and changed the methods used there too. By connecting better with each other we can learn, grow and enjoy life far better than we could living in separation, with suspicious and contempt for each other.
It is interesting to look at the past and consider that at a  time when communication between foreign countries was poor and reliance was held on stereotypes and word of mouth, just how many of these cultural misunderstandings caused wars throughout the world, could these devastations have been prevented in today's world with the more advanced technology, communication and education we now have? Ignorance is dangerous and it continues even to this day, where there are still so many wars between countries and the minorities and majorities within. However, it is important to look at the way the world has changed and the facts that undoubtedly we now lived in a more integrated world than ever before.

In the past, there simply wasn't the same ideology towards peace and understanding that I believe is in existence in the world now. I truly believe this better understanding can create more peace and harmony than has ever existed. Thus, the catalyst for greater change is more and better education for all of us.


微信: adamhorton86

A New language means a new personality

I was recently with a British born Chinese friend at a Chinese social networking event and after meeting with  several different people, he told me something rather intriguing. He said that he felt the language, tone of voice and behaviour he expressed in English, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese was not completely the same, even when he was essentially saying the same thing in some situations. He believed that the social perimeters are significantly different between the three languages. He learnt like myself to speak Mandarin Chinese as a second language and is now fluent, but as well as learning the simple language and phonetics, there is more to it, the behaviour and attitude needs to be learnt to really comprehend and connect with your second language. I have to say I agree, and it is a good way to feel confident in your second language.

Chinese is a language that uses tones, so the correct sound is needed to be understood, but there is a lot of emphasis on words that can enable you to show focus on certain words in a sentence or to show the listener that you are familiar with their way of talking and that you understand the between the lines meanings of what you are talking about or simply that you respect the traditions of the language that simply cannot be taught to foreigners easily.

A lot of it comes down to small details, when networking in English, the language can be more formal, but generally more small talk, certainly personal questions will be left until later on depending on the success of the exchange and modesty is normal. The language used in English therefore follows these unspoken cultural normalities. In Chinese, personal questions are easier to ask, it is not rude to ask somebody's personal salary and Chinese people are more likely to show off their personal wealth through the clothes or maybe the handbag they wear.

 The friend in question told me, it felt like a natural instinct to stick to English principals in the beginning (his native language) but after spending more time in china, he felt the ability to connect more with Chinese principles and they cam naturally to the forefront once he started speaking in Cantonese or Mandarin. It. Therefore, when speaking in mandarin he would be speaking in a more confident and sometimes slightly arrogant way, which I picked up on when hearing him speak mandarin but he adopted a more passive and modest personality once he used in English.

I have already felt this come into play in my own experiences too. Some of these topics may seem slightly sexist or disrespectful, but I simply wish to give them as an example. Having lived most of my live in the UK, I have found it quite normal to talk with both men and women regarding topics to do with history or policy is for example, when trying to introduce these topics with Chinese people (not too sensitive political topics of course!) one Chinese man simply told me quite sternly that these topics should not be discussed with women as they were not interested and would have no opinion. It certainly made me think seriously about this dual personality issue between the two languages, when my friend said that he would absolutely ignore these matters with Chinese women, but happily discuss it with European women democratically if the topic came up.

I also often find that in English I will speak quieter and resist talking over people to reserve modesty, whereas in Chinese that approach will render me simply ignored. Speaking loudly and shouting at times is quite normal to do, but for others watching, it seems aggressive and rude. Strangely enough it doesn't feel like that to me and it is difficult to explain in English why it comes to feel like that over time.

When I began learning mandarin, I hope this would be a way to bridge gaps with Chinese people but naively presumed it would not change me personally, that I would be exactly the same person, I know believe that to be truly fluent in a language, you must adopted the personality and behaviour of those speakers in you second language.

The truth is, it's not unnatural, it maybe simply that bilingual people will organically develop this second personality gradually over time as they get more and more integrated into their second environment. But from a social science point of view, it's something that is interesting to draw attention to and learn from.

Why speaking Chinese is essential in China for foreigners

In the modern world we live in today, spaces becoming smaller and worlds increasingly intertwined. Our abilities to communicate with each other allows us all to interact with some many different people from all over the world from cultures so diverse from our own. However, it is also commonly presumed especially in developed international cities throughout the world that learning foreign languages is increasingly unnecessary as more and more people around the globe learn English as a foreign language. I truly believe this is not the case and learning foreign languages is just as important now as it ever has been or ever will be in the future. I will never forget my fascination with languages from the age of 9, when I met some children the same age as me from Germany visiting Torquay in the south west of England. The children spoke perfect English with me and engaged in playing games with my sister and I, I didn't feel they were German at all, until they saw their parents again and started to speak fluent German with them, who couldn't speak much English. I felt hugely envious of their bilingual ability and began to consider learning languages as a pathway to connect with more people around the world.

It actually took me until I was 23, to get serious about it, but on my first visit to China, I found the importance speaking a foreign language. I realised while Chinese people were mostly extremely hospitable towards me, it was awkward and frustrating for me because I longed to speak to them as confidently and accurately as I could in English. My lack of ability in speaking Chinese at the time meant that the only impressions they could get of me was through my body language and through the use of common stereotypes held towards foreigners in China.

It is these stereotypes that I got to understand more clearly the second time I came to China. I had made some friends in China who couldn't speak English from my first visit, but I had been helped through another friend translating for us. When I came back, I was able to communicate much better in Chinese, but what my Chinese friend said to me was really interesting. He felt that now he had heard me speaking Chinese with him, he felt more of a connection with me as an individual with an identity and less of me being just a foreigner in China with all the stereotypical associations common in China. He told me that the majority of foreigners don't seem to feel the need to speak Chinese, and they seemed rude and aggressive in nature from his own experiences, but also mostly from what he had heard from others. As I got to speak with more and more native Chinese speakers who couldn't speak English with me, I learnt increasingly how important my actions were towards people in China. If I was only ever to use English in China, Chinese people would never have the opportunity to understand me and see me as an individual, but more importantly, the cultural differences between us would also cause more misunderstandings for other foreigners too. 

From this experience onward, I realised that I represented not only myself, but also foreigners in China too. Chinese people form a strong collective society where collectivism in large networks of families and friends is normal. People's behaviour and interaction is thus seen as being part of a group. Individualism is rarely considered. For this reason, many Chinese see foreigners from other countries in the same way too, that the behaviour of a few is representative of all or most foreigners. In some ways some foreigners have left a bad reputation in China in the big cities and my Chinese friend admitted that they felt frustrated that foreigners in China expected Chinese people to use English with them, and made no interest in learning their language. It is thus maybe for this reason that Chinese people have only been able to really form opinions based on body language, which may be why my friend considered foreigners to be rude and aggressive. It could be said that culturally, there may be differences that exacerbate these feelings.

Ultimately, language is formed from culture, history and the environment of that country. Speaking the local language gives you access to all the rich parts of that culture, history and environment than is possible from simply translating to your own language. But most importantly from my perspective, it has taught me the value of setting a good example for other people from my own culture, and to reduce negative stereotypes towards foreigners that may occur. I feel speaking Chinese in China allows me to set a better example, but also allows myself to be seen more as an individual too. 

It is this type of answer (albeit in shorter form!) that I try to explain to people, when they ask about why I have taken on the difficult challenge of learning a language so different from my own native language.