Recently, my friend in Beijing posted some photos comparing the differences between the East and West. The artist was born in China, but has lived in Germany since 1990. I think this particular project is incredible because the pictures are so simple, but they say so much (west left, east right). **(see notes at the bottom).
- One of many photos – Queue When Waiting
The first time I saw these photos was in my fourth year Chinese class. I had just come back from a summer in Indonesia, and found the comparison as applicable there as it is to China. For example, look at this photo on “handling problems”:
This was exactly my experience when I was in Indonesia. Everything from problems in the classroom to issues at restaurants, Indonesians always seemed to go around the main issue. I remember my program director telling me to never say you don’t like something. He said, ‘even if you can’t stand the food, say you like it. If they ask you what you think, say that you like A, but prefer B. This is just one of many anecdotes from my time in the country that highlight this cultural difference.
To me, all most all of the photos are accurate when it comes to China and Indonesia. However, when I look at these and think about life in Singapore, it is not as clear. Few people would argue that Singapore is pretty westernized compared to other Asian countries. In fact, I remember having a chat about this with an African student when I was in China. He asked me what Chinese people call Singaporeans. I replied “xin jia po ren” (Singaporean in Mandarin), to which he replied, “no – xiang jiao po ren” (banana people, also used for American Born Chinese. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside). From then on, I really did start to notice cultural differences between Chinese Singaporeans and the locals.
Anyway, let me get back on track. In some cases, the Chinese culture remains. The sense of community, the role of the extended family, socializing, etc are all aspects of the culture that I regularly see here in Singapore. Other areas, such as queuing and punctuality are not the same. In those areas, Singapore is more like the west.
Although cultural differences between the East and West are not as clear in Singapore, I do think that the more important elements are still there. Family remains more important, and plays a bigger role than it does in the west (generally speaking, of course). I don’t think it matters that people show up to places on time and form lines if they are holding on to everything else.
****Notes
Mountain Runner posted these photos and some comments about the copyright situation. I would have posted more photos with more comments, but I want to respect the author.
Japan Newbie also had some photos posted with comments specifically about Japan.
Info about the artist:
Images of the book “Ost trifft West” (East meets West)
Hermann Schmidt Verlag Mainz
-Differences between Germans and Chinese
- A diary of Yang Liu
@Yang Liu Design, www.yangliudesign.com
Yang Liu was born in 1976. In age of 13, she moved with her parents to Germany. With age of 17, she started her studies at the University of Arts in Berlin. After her master degree, she worked as a designer in Singapore, London, Berlin and New York City. 2004 she has started her own design studio. While she is giving workshops and lectures on several international conferences, she was as well as teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Glasgow school of Art. Her works had been awarded with several international design awards and are shown in Museums and became partof the collections.
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See why we should be brother blogs? I love your entry, obviously!
Thanks (and yeah, obviously)!