Your First View of America

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*Describe your personal culture shock in the United States.

What is culture? The word culture has many different meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. If one is looking this word up in a dictionary, he will find out that culture is ¡§the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population.¡¨ This definition is very true. Indeed, it probably contains most of the concepts of what I think culture is. However, as a foreign born Chinese-American, I would add a few concepts that inherited from my parents as follow; the proper way to eat, such as using the right hand only, the proper way to use a knife and fork, chopsticks, and the comfortable physical distance between people talking.

I came to the United States with my family when I was young. One day, we went to a high school to register for admission for my brother and sister. And that was the moment that I noticed the difference between the U.S. and Hong Kong. I noticed that the students in school didn¡¦t have to wear uniforms. In addition, they have dyed hair, and have hair products on their hair. Back in Hong Kong, students were under lots of regulations, such as students must wear their uniforms in a very proper way, to try to bring out a sense of ¡§the students from this school are good students¡¨. In addition, all the boys in the schools will have to have a certain kinds of haircut; one cannot have his hair covered his ears, etc.

It is obvious that there is different point of view in education between the United States and Hong Kong. It is the different culture systems. The United States is always promoting that it is a freedom country. And Hong Kong was the colony of the British, a royal country. There is not a definite way to treat all the people...
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