@@茶叶蛋炒饭@@ 第十六次作业 ISSUE63 请组员跟帖

yeshen2010UID: 2744103

ISSUE63: To truly understand your own culture——no matter how you define it——requires personal knowledge of at least one other culture, one that is distinctly different from your own.


Culture plays a much more important role in nowadays. The speaker claims that to truly understand one's own culture, one should have knowledge on at least one other totally different culture. From my perspective, I concur with the assertion that a totally different culture can help understand one's own culture. However, a similar culture can also assist comprehension on one's own culture.

Only knowing about one's own culture may bring prejudices, or even result in tragedy. On the one hand, a person just with own culture is easier to become more narrow minded. One may not respect others activities, feelings, and thoughts without know other cultures. There is an old saying that one cannot understand others, but should respect others. Or, one can make mistakes. For example, when coming to a temple in Xizang in China, tourists should take off shoes to show pious to Buddha. If one does not follow this rule, he or she will be driven out. On the other hand, a country just with its own culture may bring disaster to the world. The Nazi Germany is a typical example. During the Second World War, many German believed that their culture and nationality were the most excellent in the world. So they killed a number of people who belonged to other cultures, including Jewish culture, Muslin culture. Due to the prejudice that Nazi Germany had, numerous people's feelings were hurt, and their life encountered dangerous, or even got murdered. In a word, own culture may lead to prejudices.

A distinctly different culture can strengthen one's knowledge on own culture. As we all known, eastern culture is fairly different from western culture. Even on a same thing, there always have different opinions. In some western countries, it is an irrespective activity to let a seat to an old which may be regarded to be offensive. Because maybe the old thinks that he or she is still young, and has no need to have a seat. While In China, when taking a bus, we usually have seat to elders because it is a virtue in China. So if a Chinese visiting a western country finds the phenomenon, maybe he or she will look into Chinese history to exam the origination of having seat to others in China which will help he or she to understand own culture better. Compared the two kinds of culture, one can understand own culture either eastern's or western's more deeply.

However, a similar culture can also help one to comprehend own culture. In the worldwide, many countries' cultures originate the same places. Sometimes, a culture gets preserved in other countries while disappeared in the original country. For example, Tang Dynasty's culture, an ancient dynasty in China, is protected better in Japan than that in China. If a Chinese looks into Japan's culture, then he or she will strengthen understanding of Chinese culture. Therefore, understanding the similar culture is a good way to know one's own culture.

Based on what have discussed above, we can know that truly understanding one’s own culture requires not only the distinctly different ones, but also the similar ones.




改link的 ISSUE63 by yeshen

The speaker's statement emphasizes importance on comparison between two different forms of culture. Admittedly, only through comparison can we understand our own culture or some other affairs better. However, he points out that we should understand the distinctly different culture in error.
提出观点：只有比较才能更好的了解我们的文化或者其他的事情。

  To begin with, we cannot deny that comparison is beneficial to understand more deeply our own culture. We are costumed of the way we live; events we keep in touch which every day; the language we use and so forth. As a consequence, perhaps we never think about why these exist, how they developed and how greatly it is. Yet we will notice these when we encounter with other form of culture. For example, when Chinese go to the US, the first thing they found different is the way of talking. Chinese always are apt to mention the most important thing in the end of talk. On the contrary, Americans usually come straight to the point. From this different, people could conclude that Chinese are more implicative than American, which is always embody（embodied） in Chinese essay. Without this comparison, many Chinese may be never aware of this character of them.  Thus, comparison is a valid and useful way to understand our own culture deeply.
比较有助于加深理解。例子：中国人和美国人说话的方式：含蓄与直接

  However, distinctly difference between two forms of culture does not bring about such a satisfactory consequence we discussed above in some cased. When comparing two distinctly different cultures, it may could（删掉，情态动词重复了） not obtain anything useful.  The tribe in Africa whose members are all man-eaters proves my notion. The reason is simple that we do not eat human and all the people we meet past are all not man-eater. Thus we will only be surprised and amazing when we face with this tribe. In other words, there is no value to study the man-eater for understanding Chinese or some other counties culture.
然而，两种截然不同的文化形式没有带来令人满意的结果。举了食人族的例子，可是不知道你这个例子对说明这个观点起什么作用。

  In addition, the result of encounter of two distinctly culture may be a collision, or even a war, in some certain circumstances. There will be a disagreement between two different cultures; this disagreement may develop into a collision or a war. The religion war in Indian is an effective example. Many years ago, India and Pakistan consist of one country, but they have been separated into two countries and the fundamental reason is the collision of religion. Pakistani believes in Muslimism, but most of the Indian believes in Hinduism. They have their own dogma, which are completely different from each other. Thus there exists a contradiction between India and Pakistan, who eventually develop into two countries. The contact between the two forms of religion does not bring about any improvement of culture knowledge but a war. It is dangerous that comparison between of two distinctly culture, which could bring about conflict.
两种不同文化的碰撞的结果可能是冲突，甚至战争，在某些情形下。例子：印度和巴基斯坦

  To sum up, comparing between different cultures could embody diverse forms of an aspect of culture, which could improve our understanding of culture. Yet two distinctly different cultures may be useless for understanding of our own culture, or even could cause a collision.
总结并重申之前论述的观点。

小结：第三段论证不够充分。层次性还是有的。

imlifewillingUID: 2706999

by 懒蚂蚁
（55分钟，756字，太多，控制时间！！！）
12:56
Should we obtain at least one other culture that is distinctly different from our own in order to truly understand our own culture as the speaker claims? According to my observation, as culture is composed of traditional culture and current culture, we should mainly base on our own culture when we learn about our old culture while we should make use of other cultures as well for the understanding of the new culture. At the same time, we should keep in mind that the other cultures we use must have relation with our culture rather than the ones that are totally distinct.

In the first place, it is important for us to make a fully understand of culture. Culture is developed and accumulated along with the history of human. When it comes to our nowadays, culture consists of the traditional culture which is passed down from our ancestors generation by generation, and the current culture which we build up in our contemporary society by absorbing the essences of other cultures based on our own culture. Let's take the Chinese culture as an example to illustrate it. When we talk about the Chinese traditional culture, the first thing comes into our mind is Confucianism. However, when we discuss about the culture of today's China, we may feel confused because this culture not only contains the basic elements of Confucianism such as politeness and kindheartedness, but also contains the essences of western cultures such as the pursuit of freedom. In short, the traditional culture and the current culture are different, and we should use different methods to learn them.

In the second place, when we talk about learning the old cultures, it is better for us to rely on our own culture. Since this kind of culture is abstracted from our ancestors' daily lives and has been recognized by us as our basic principles, it is hard to be influenced by the other ones. Let's take the Confucianism as an example again, you can hardly find a connection between it and the Christian. On the other hand, because the traditional culture connects so strongly with our own lives that it is the best and the easiest way for us to learn it. Just as for having an understanding of Spring Festival, it is easy for Chinese people to feel it through their daily life since they are so familiar with it while it is impossible for you to feel a little bit about it through having a Christmas Day. All in all, learning on our own culture is the best way to understand the traditional part of our culture.

However, when it comes to the current culture, we'd better learn it from other cultures for a fully understanding. As the development of our society, nations all around the world interplay with each other much more than before. Therefor, it is hard for you to find a culture that can keep its own characteristics without being influenced by other cultures. Such as the the Japanese culture, which is a mixture of eastern culture and western culture. As a result it is necessary for Japanese to understand it from both the eastern culture which serves as its foundations and the western culture which brings some new fresh air to it. By studying the current culture from other respects, we can find the lacks of our culture and add the great aspects of other cultures to it for the purpose of impelling the development of our society. This is the way upon which Chinese people depend to make a fully understand of their culture, draw out the reform and open polices and ultimately make a great development. From this point of view, for a thorough understand of today's complex culture, we should take the use of learning from other cultures.

What's more, it is also important for us to remember that learning our own current culture with other cultures does not mean learning from a culture that is totally different from ours. It is ridiculous for you to try to learn a modern culture from the aspect of a tribal culture which has never touched with modern society. If you do such a thing, you will get nothing but a waste of time.

To sum up, learning from our own culture is the best way to understand the traditional culture while learning from other cultures which have connection to ours can present us a full picture of our modern culture. In a word, learning the different parts of our culture needs different methods.
13:51