Differences between Western and Asian Culture

Posted on 14. Jul, 2008 @ 12:36 pm by in Culture Views: 2,804

Found these great images depicting the differences in Western and Asian culture over on MountainRunner.

For example…

Anger

surface happiness

This image shows that in the West, when we’re angry, it shows. You can tell when someone is angry just by looking at them. In East, someone may be smiling at you and remain being polite, but actually may be fuming on the inside. You know… I have heard that Southerners in the US might be like that as well… no?

The child

Family

This one shows that in the West, the child is primarily raised  by the mother and father. In the East, it is a family affair that includes the grandparents as well.

These were created by a Chinese raised in Germany, so they are intended to pertain to the Chinese culture. Of course, most of them apply to the rest of Asia as well. In “the East” I have traveled to Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, and I would say that generally these are right on.

Of course, there are exceptions when you look at specific countries… For example:

Punctuality

punctuality

I find Japanese people to be extremely punctual. I mean, look at the train system! They apologize when the train is just a few minutes late…

Queue when Waiting

Lines

Japan is very good at forming straight lines when at the post office, or waiting for a train or bus or something. In Kansai the lines for the train break down just a tiny bit… But in general they’re solid.

I remember the first time I had to line up to buy something in India at the post office… Madness. We’re talking people reaching up and over your back, around your side, to get their money on the counter before you in order to buy a stamp.

There are many more images on MountainRunner’s site, go check them out!

- Harvey

  • bigfoot

    That last one can be a real problem in San Francisco, when half of the people getting on the bus are standing in line, and the other half are trying to board it like it’s the last bus out of Nanking, ’37, before the Japanese show up.

    Particularly irritating when you look like one of the swarmers but are trying to patiently wait your turn.

  • http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

    One thing I’d like to add, Harvey – In Japan, people only maintain a line when it is explicitly asked of them to do so. When there are three counters open (like at Vie de France), instead of forming one so that it is a temporal-based order, a lot of Japanese (especially middle-aged and older women) jump in to the fastest place possible, regardless of whether or not someone was waiting in the center for the next available register.

    Tsutaya has done a good job of herding the cattle in with their blue guide-lines, though. What I’m getting at is that the Japanese only do what’s right when it is requested of them.

    My boss is actually attending a night-time university course up here in Tohoku, and they just covered this in a social psychology class – Westerners are more likely to do something we’d consider “kind” without anyone telling them to do it. The experiment was conducted using money, where Japanese would gladly pay “required fees”, but Westerners were more likely to give more money in unrequested charity.

  • http://surrealu.blogspot.com claytonian

    To go along with Alex’s point, I get the impression that volunteerism is compulsory, children rarely get adopted… etc…

  • bingobangoboy

    Yeah, Japanese people are great at forming lines while waiting for the train. When the train actually pulls up… Was there a line? What’s a line?
    In Japan, a person’s punctuality is a good way of gauging how they feel about you — the “Japanese people are very punctual” stereotype tends to be true, but only in formal situations. I don’t think Japanese people actually intend to be so consistently late for people they’re comfortable with, but it sure seems that way sometimes.

  • http://www.maguild.co.uk Doug

    For the Chinese I’d say the punctuality is spot on. When I was at college there was a very large Chinese student population. They’d always get into class anywhere from 5-to and 10-past the lesson starts.

    Used to wind me up!!

  • http://www.kolalo.com/hotels/japan/ Nikko

    Haha, actually they were originally from a pic gallery of showing thinking differences between Germans and Chinese.

  • http://pixelscribbles.com/journal Heather Meadows

    I think the punctuality thing is also different here in the US South…people are always 15 minutes late and no one really worries about it.

    It used to drive me crazy. Living here has really mellowed me out over the years.

  • Peter

    I have to disagree with the given interpretation of “The Child”. It’s saying that in the West the child is just a part of the family, but in the East, the whole family revolves around the children. This is especially noted in China where there is only one child who often ends up spoiled.
    Please see the “Little Emperor Syndrome” page on Wikipedia

  • Jake

    @ Peter

    The “Little Emperor Syndrome” is more of an extreme case of the entire family raising a child.

    My cousins in Taiwan were all raised by our grandparents while their parents were at work. In fact they saw their grandparents more than their parents.

  • Erdogan, L. T.

    What do you mean by “west”? I guess you just mean certain parts of Germany. Take Italy, most provinces of France, Spain, Greece, all Balkan countries, South America as a whole, most parts of USA, etc and all fit in your description of the east. I cannot understand people with overly exaggerated generalizations of the “west”.

  • Ha

    Really Erdogan? You cant understand it when people overly exaggerate generalizations of the “west”? Try living with lots of westerners who assume “eastern” culture just from staying over there a month or so. Additionally, westerners are all alike in some way too, dont try flattering your own culture.

  • Kai

    Just because their train system is on time doesn’t mean the people are. My experience with Japanese people is exactly how it’s expressed in the diagram.

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