Cultural Profile Paper Folder

>*,.+"-n', \y (r

Namhee Thompson COMM I74 Dr. Rona Halualani M'-ch24.2004

Culture And Society

Human societies are distinguished by different cultures. Cultures bring people into

groups with others who share common beliefs, values, attitudes, and so on. Those pictures

from my college show how they symbolize my culture (Korean) and how they influence me.

The picture of man is Confucius, whose teachings were predominant in Korean

culture for many years. We have to talk about Confucianism when we want to understand

the Korean culture. The important point of Confucianism is that a good family creates a

good society. Confucianism is Confucius' teachings ofhow an individual should live and

interact with others, and the forms of society and govemment in which he should participate.

He emphasized values of order, hierarchy and deference to authority, reflected in the

traditional "wulun rules of deference," for example, subordination ofchild to parents,

student to teacher, young to old, wife to husband, citizen to ruler. The most important value

of Confucius' teaching is the value of filial piety because it describes the correct way to act

towards one's parents: be respectful, polite, considerate, loyal, helpful, dutiful, and obedient.

Confucius considered filial piety an imperative moral conduct. To Korean and other

Confucian heritage cultures, it is the central ideolory that provides the foundation for all

other attitudes.

The picture of my family shows how my culture values one's own family because

family members share common blood. Thus, our society values close relationships within

family and clan. For us, common blood means everything; therefore, we share one's success

and failure. lfan elder brother gains a success and wealth, then he shares it with other family

members and takes care of his younger siblings and parents. However, if he fails in

something, this means whole family loses face. Every family member takes care of each

other.

The value of filial piety (the picture ofChinese words) is above any other values,

because Confucius teaches that ifone does not have piety towards one's own parents, then he

or she can not be loyal towards his or her friends, country, or any other person or group.

Confucianism teaches that my parents may be seen as my life in the past and my children in

the future. Therefore, a parents' duty is to give support to their children because if their

children are well off, then subsequent generations after their children will be better off.

However, a child's duty is to take care oftheir aged parents because their parents sacrificed

their lives for their children. So, it is a duty ofchildren to look after their aged parents. I have

this same duty toward my mother. She is my responsibility. Thus, it can be argued that I

have to gain wealth to support my mother.

The picture of an American is my husband. My behavior is changed when I am with

him. Since he is an American, he values individualism and does not have the same

perception toward filial duty that I do. He does not think that he has the filial duty toward his

parents. We also have an equal relationship in our house. I do the housework, and he does

the yard work. Moreover, I do not have to cook many dishes for him' He only prefers to

have a main meal. It is much different from my own culture. In my culture, a wife cooks

many dishes for one meal because we eat a bowl of rice with many side dishes, and the wife

cooks meals three times per day.

The next picture is my dog, Norton. Living with him changed my attitudes toward

dogs. In my culture, dogs are not human companions. We separate our lives from animals'

lives and consider them to have a different position in society. Therefore, they have to live

outdoors and eat leftover human food. However, my perception about dogs has changed

\

since I got Norton. Norton lives in indoors and sleeps with me. I take him to a veterinarian

regularly (actually, we spend a lot of money on his hospital bills). He is a part of my family.

The picture ofthe computer keyboard and earth shows how I think ofthe world.

Since the mid-1990s, the lntemet spreads out the world. With the Intemet, people get

information, and send emails and instant messages. The Intemet removes geographical and

time barriers. It reduces cultural barriers too. People participate in games and communicate

with people from other countries. The Intemet also removes the ethnicity, gender, and the

age of its users because it is a contextual communication method.

The cultural pattem that seems to operate in my life is collectivism. According to

Hofstede ( 1998), collective culture tends to be like groups. He says that collective culture

tends to have a high context, high/low uncertainty avoidance, high power distance, and high

masculinity whereas individualism culture tends to have low context, high uncertainty

avoidance, low/medium power distance, and masculinity/femininity. My cultural

backgromd is based on collectivism that contains high context, middle-high uncertainty

avoidance, and masculinity.

People from collective cultures tend to belong to groups. They feel comfortable when

they belong to groups of like individuals. Their lives are spent belonging to many groups:

family, school, friends, and work. For example, students in Korea and Japan wear uniforms,

which give them a sense ofbelonging to their schools. Each school has its own designed

uniform that distinguishes its students from other schools' students. Another example is that

in the culture of collectivism, people do not like to have a meal alone. They always have

someone to eat with them.

In high context culture, people do not have a concept of "on time." Their view of

time is "in time." And, they emphasize building trust in every relationship. Therefore, they

prefer to build relationship first when they conduct business. Another example ofhigh

context culture is the business card and handshake when doing business. When people meet

their business partner, they first shake their hand and then exchange their business cards. In

Korea, people should have their own business card to give out. In high context culture,

people have indirect communication, such as nonverbal communication, which is important

when people have a conversation. Also, saving face both personally and professionally is

important to them.

My cultural pattem also has high uncertainty avoidance, high power distance, and

masculinity. I think Korean cultural pattern is high uncertainty avoidance because people use

the Intemet to find answers whenever, they have unanswered questions. Korean society is a

patriarchy and patrilineal society in which the family name, properties, and assets are passed

along the male line ofdescendents. Therefore, this masculinity drives from these patrilineal

and patriarchy social system as well as high power distance.

Confucianism reflects every cultural pattem of mine that I explain above. It reflects

values, beliefs, and the overall worldview of my culture because it is a main philosophy

among Koreans that has deep roots in the society. Therefore, as a Confucian society, Koreans

value the harmony based on individual inequalities, and individual interest can be sacrificed

for the benefit of society.

A Confucian society emphasizes indirect communication and conflict avoidance

rather than clarification. Understanding Korean culture is essential to communicating with

one another. For example, ifthe consultant has some appreciation ofthe traditional values

rooted in the Confucian doctrines, he or she may hesitate to insist on certain opinions or point

out some errors related to the project. Thus, communication could be vague, aad it would be

required to leam to "read between the lines" to understand the content. Americans, because

of their strong tradition of freedom of expression, tend to be perceived as extremely vocal

and opinionated to the Korean consultant, which might make the consultant feel

uncomfortable expressi ng some opi nions.

The cultural pattems (Confucius based collectivism) have influence by behavior very

much, but my norms of behaviors are somewhat divided. When I am with my parents,

brothers, or friends, my norms ofbehaviors or commutation styles change into traditional

Korean ways. However, my norms of behaviors or commutation styles are more

individualistic when I am with my husband, or among American friends. Therefore, cultwe is

flexible regarding collectivism or individualism because culture reflects a society where

people set up the norm of behaviors, values, beliefs, etc. I had to change my cultural

behavior when my living environment changed. For example, living in Califomia for the last

eight years has changed me, because I have had to adjust to American culture in order to be

comfo(able living in America. Therefore, I am flexible in both cultures when I deal with

them.

The article, Chinese and North Americans, by Ling Chen (1998) shows that Chinese

culture is similar to Korean culture in many ways. Basically both cultures are predominated

by Confucianism, which shares similar cultural pattems and worldviews. Both cultures are

collectivism cultures that emphasize harmony ofsociety based on Confucius' teachings as

well as Taoism. Confucianism believes that the world is in unity with yin and yang; therefore,

we should value both human beings and spirituals. One ritual of ancestor worship shows a

good example ofthis worldview: both Chinese and Koreans believe that one's ancestor's

spirits look after their decedents.

First, both cultures value their interpersonal relationships, where people share

personal opinions and offer advice on everyday matters. They are also concemed about

everyone's business, as it is their own. Second, both cultures are hierarchical societies that

derive from the oatriarchv and patrilineal social svstems the value that the male line is more

impo(ant than the female line. They are male dominated cultures. Third, communication

style is indirect in both cultures, so nonverbal body or facial expressions are important to

understand the real meaning ofa conversation. They also do not display their feelings or

emotions because displaying feelings or emotions is not considered to be a good virtue,

especially for men. Forth, both cultures separate animals from human lives because animals

are positioned below human beings. Therefore, they do not use a pronoun to call their

animals. Last, both cultures have a similar way ofhosting visitors. A Chinese person offers

comfort and food continuously to their visitors. Koreans also host their visitors in the same

way. Most of above points are similar to my case, but the point of animals is different in my

case. For me, Norton is my family (he is like my baby), so I use a pronoun when I call him.

Moreover, I talk like his mom when I talk to his doctor.

We cannot distinguish worldview, culture, and communication differently because

these are related to one other. When we talk about worldview, we have to talk culture first,

and talk about communication when we talk about culture as well. According to the course

reading from Samovar & Porter, the worldview is defined as the "orientation that we hold

towards religion, nature, life, death, and the universe, philosophical issues conceming the

meaning of life and existence." One's worldview is abstracted from one's culture, because

culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts. For example,

my culture believes in the existence of spirits, so I see the world as a harmony of nature and

humans. Communication also varies with one's culture. For example, in Korean culture' the

communication style is indirect whereas American style is very direct. Therefore, my

communication style is more like the indirect style because ofmy cultural background; I do

not want to hurt another person's feelings by anlthing I say. Moreover, it is hard for me to

change my style of communication even though I have lived in Califomia for years. I still

have a hard time saying "no" to others. In short, worldview, culture, and communication are

related to each other. They are all influenced by one another, so we have to consider all three

of them when with talk about worldvieq culture, or communication.

Referpnce:

Cheru L. (198). Chinese and North Americans: An epistemological exploration of intercultural communication. In J.N. Martin, T.k.Nakayama" L.A.Flores @ds.), Readinss in cultural contexts Gp,357-369). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. Retrieved March 21, 2004, from Communication Studies 174 Course Reading

Hofstede, G. (1998). I, we, and they. In J.N.Martin, T.K.Nakayama L.A.Flores (Eds.), Readings in cultural contexts (pp.345-356). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. Retrieved Marchzl, 2004,from Communication Shrdies 174 Course Reading