Friendship11

FriendshipIntroductionAccording to the OXFORD, friend is usually the person you like or a supporter of you. In other words, friend is not an enemy but a silly or annoying person. And friendship refers to a relationship between friends or the state of being friends. Although both Chinese and Americans view friendship as treasure, the definition of friendship in the two areas is not the same. Friends and friendship in the eyes of Americans is quite different from the Chinese people. In the American dictionary, the definition of friends is more widely. The friendship in China just means the deep feeling and firm relationship between friends. However, in America, friendship not only points to a wide range of interpersonal relationship, but also points to a partnership. It is obvious that there are a lot of differences between Chinese and Americans.BodyAs is known to us all that friendship is a necessary part in our daily life. Nobody can live a happy life without a friend. When you feel sad or happy, you need a friend to share your feelings. Just as the proverb said a friend is a second self. And of course, our friends also include foreigners such as Americans. But because of our cultural difference, our definition of friendship in our mind might be different. As a result, it is no denying that we should find out the differences between Western friendship and Chinese friendship. More importantly, we should understand why these differences exist and we need to learn to how to deal with them.First of all, I will analysis the difference of the friendship between Chinese and Americans. A friend in China is someone who, sensing that you are in need in some way, offers to assist you without waiting to be asked. As the saying goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. In China, there are few limits on what you can ask except of a friend. And you can feel free to tell your friend what he or she can or should do tohelp you or please you. While in America, you can certainly ask a friend to help you or do something with you, but you would not expect a friend to recognize and respond to your wishes without stating them. Nor would you expect a friend to drop everything to respond to a non-urgent need such as going shopping. Compared to Chinese, there are limits to what you can expect from a friend in the US. You may feel free to ask your friend for help in America, but you recognize that the friend may say no if they give you a reason. From this aspect, we can find out what we can expect from our friend is different from China to America.On the other hand, our Chinese often seem to expect that our friendship can last for a long period of time maybe for a lifetime. It is firmly believed that a true friendship is a relationship that endures through changes in the lives of the friends. The longer our friendship can last for, the more valuable it will be. However, in the United States, a person is likely to change even “best friend” several times over the years. Even this relationship in which people feel close emotionally and tell each other their secrets and personal problems may not survive life changes such as move to another city, graduation from a university, a significant change in economic circumstances, or the marriage of one of the friends. For Chinese people, they may regard this behavior as not treasuring their friendship. While for Americans, the reason is that friendship, like so many other relationships in the United States including marriage, depend on frequent interaction with the other person. On the contrary, Chinese people believe that a true friendship will last for a lifetime no matter what happens.Last but not least, Chinese friends give each other much more concrete help and assistance than Americans do. A Chinese friend will use personal connections to help a friend get something he or she wanted as well as hard to obtain such as a job, an appointment with a good doctor, an easier path through an official procedure or an introduction to another person who might also be able to give concrete help. Chinese people might try their best to help their friends. Because they treat their friends as their brothers or sisters. In their mind, to help their friends is equivalent to help themselves. As with so many other things in the west, people prefer to be independentrather than dependent, so they do not feel comfortable in a relationship in which one person is giving more and the other person is dependent on what is being given.Chinese people believe that true friendship should stand up the test, regardless of what changes occurred in life. While American people don’t think so. Secondly, Chinese people prefer to communicate with old friends. While American people prefer to make up more new friends. Chinese people can do everything for their true friends because they have treated their friends as their relatives. Nevertheless, American people choose to be independent and they will not do anything just for their friends’good. As a result, we can clearly find that Chinese people and American people differ greatly in their values of friendship. Since we can not remove these differences, we can change ourselves at least to cater to each other between Chinese and Americans,ConclusionIn fact, the answer to the question why there are so many differences between Chinese friendship and American friendship is the different culture basic. After all, the history of the two countries is different, which then leads to the cultural difference of the West and East. As we all know, friendship is one of the most beautiful things in the world and every one of us should cherish it. With the growing of the opening policy, more and more foreigners come to our country and we have a lot of chances to make friends with them. It is really a good chance for us to expand our horizon and practice our oral communicative competence. But at the same time, it is also a challenge for us. On account of the differences among the definition of friendship, the way in the treatment of friendship, the friendship in the processing and maintenance of attitudes, the expected return on the value of friendship between Chinese and Americans, what we should do is to respect and understand each other. We should try our best to build up a favorable friendship between Chinese and Americans.。