What do you know about Chinese culture?

By staff reporter Zhang Hui
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China Today, June 20, 2017
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What Is the First Thing You Think of When You Think about China?

According to 2007 data from the Linguistic Society of America, 678 American universities introduced new Chinese language programs, 101 of which were in California.

Dr. Liu stated that the steady increase in Chinese learners over the last few years rose proportionately to America's growing population of ethnic Chinese – most Chinese American students opted for Chinese class at school. The recent surge of Chinese students studying in the U.S. has brought more local students into contact with them, and has prompted some American students to learn Chinese. There are also students who are simply interested in China and want to learn more about it.

Since he began teaching Chinese language and culture in America, Dr. Liu has always wanted to tailor his classes to better meet the learning needs of American students studying China's society and culture. He conducted a large survey consisting of interviews and questionnaires and discovered that American students are particularly interested in nine topics related to Chinese culture:

1) Chinese cultural and historical outlook; 2) East-West cultural exchanges and Chinese Studies; 3) the Chinese political system; 4) traditional business models in China; 5) education in ancient China; 6) traditional Chinese philosophy; 7) Chinese religions; 8) traditional Chinese art; and 9) the culture of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), health and diet.

In order to further identify exactly what American teenagers knew about Chinese history and culture, Dr. Liu and his team conducted another survey to evaluate what they had learned at school. Their questionnaire consisted of three questions: 1) Do you remember what you learned about Chinese history and culture while you were at school? 2) Do you remember the names of any Chinese people mentioned in your primary school textbooks? 3) What is the first thing you think of when you think about China?

The survey showed that most of what the students actually remembered about Chinese history and culture came from their 10th grade classes, which covered the semi-colonial period of China's history. They had forgotten most of what they had learned about China in primary and secondary school. American teenagers are most familiar with the following Chinese leaders: Confucius, Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong, and Chiang Kai-shek.

From the results of the survey, Dr. Liu concluded that most American school and university textbooks on the subject of Chinese language and culture are not culturally relevant to American students and so fail to meet the needs of their target audience. Much of the content does not suit the American learning style and does not focus on the things students are actually interested in.

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