The Phenomenon of East-West Cultural Integration
Good morning, everyone. May you all have a good mood. As we all know, the day before yesterday was Christmas. I think everyone enjoyed the day very much. Obviously, Christmas is a western festival, but Chinese people give it a new meaning, that is “safety and happiness”. And today, the topic of my speech is The Phenomenon of East-West Cultural Integration.
First, Let us know about the origin of Christmas. The name Christmas is short for Christ’s mass. A mass is a kind of church service. Christmas is a religious festival. it is the day we celebrate as the birthday of Jesus. There are special Christmas services in Christian churches all over the world. But many of the festivities of Christmas do not have anything to do with religion. Exchanging gifts and sending Christmas cards are the modern ways of celebrating the Christmas in the world.
Now, Christmas has been very popular in China, especially among the young people. Global integration not only promotes the international business trade, but also affects the people's traditions and customs of different countries and regions. Just as the American people have accepted the gloable food culture, Chinese young generation are also absorbing the western culture, for example Christmas. In addition, Valentine's day, Thanksgiving day and fast food, are also very popular.
In my opinion, there mainly are two reasons to expain that why foreign festivals are becoming more and more popular in China. For one thing, each festival is full of strong cultural color. For another thing, these festivals are filled with human interest.
In addition, American fast food culture has the same situation with western festivals. Fast food is very popular in China. People like to eat fast food, especially children and youngsters. Fast food means restaurants make food quick and people eat food by their fingers. Now, it is permeating to traditional Chinese culture. Nowadays we can see a lot of fast-food shops in China like KFC and McDonald and so on. And it is so popular that you even cannot find a seat to sit down to eat what you bought at lunch time. In China almost everyone likes eat fast-food for its good taste and we regard the shop as the place we can talk with our friends how the things stand. There are some reasons for its popularity. Firstly, there are a variety of fast-food that we can choose what we like. There are hamburgers and pizza. Secondly, recently an increasing number of people concentrate more on health than taste. And the fast-food in China is not like those in foreign countries. It adds lots of nutrition and several useful things into the fast-food. Not only for it, but also for its reasonable price and delicious taste. Thirdly, it can save much time so that you can spend this time shopping. What’s more, we can taste all kinds of food from different parts of the world with soft music and can do homework with our classmates.
Everything needs to adjust to the society with the changes of time and space, and culture makes no exception. Especially when it compromises into another culture, the origin will also change. As mentioned above, the Chinese food sold in the United States,
