Since spiritual life can be enriched and developed only when the material life is guaranteed, eating becomes the most crucial need and task in life. As closely linked with eating, rituals in meals then are indispensable to be mentioned and concerned. Manners at tables, as one branch of rituals, are undoubtedly shaped and influenced by cultures to a large extent, because the ritual can reflect a nation’s convention and its culture.
The culture, created by human, is a special existing way of human and a common wealth of human. But human’s existence and development differ from regions, nations and races. As a result, cultures of the West and China have different special features since they are created by their own races under different humanity environments. It indicates that culture presents various styles and each contains its special characteristic, which works in concert with the specific ritual in communication.
The Chinese traditional culture is broad and deep with long history, emphasizing social ethics culture which involves humanity nature. Thus it has restrained system, which makes Chinese people tend to be more defensive than aggressive. On the contrary, Western cultures are diverse and separable, with expansion and aggression. It is also known that the Western cultures advocate religious beliefs and scientific reasons with abundant of humanism spirits.① These two show the different creative abilities and spirits, as well as the different historical characteristics and special styles. Only when getting acquainted with cultures of the West and the East, can we comprehend precisely and learn techniques for adjusting to them both.
Culture consists of patterns and behaviors acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, and the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas, especially their values.②
Cultural phenomena, especially those which are almost universal around us, embody the cultural symbol. Therefore, table manners of Western countries and China are more a kind of introduction, while the cultural roots which cause these differences are the essential points and substance of this thesis. Because culture is made up of a great multitude of cultural phenomena, which contain the main features of a nation and the codes of the nation’s culture.
[ 本帖最后由 vivi0905 于 9-6-2008 19:02 编辑 ] |
发表于 9-6-2008 17:08:32
收藏
赞
踩
楼主
that is right the problem !
文章写的漂亮，虽然我没怎么看懂，惭愧。
