【Abstract】It goes without saying that culture reflects society. Recognizing the characteristics of Chinese and Western Culture is thus constructive and indispensable for the promotion of mutual understanding of the two cultures and their people. Amy Tan， as a representative Chinese American writer， established her position in the history of American literature with her maiden work The Joy Luck Club. The work，as an epitome of the conflicts and integration between Chinese and Western Culture，centered around the interwoven stories presenting the cultural misunderstandings between the Chinese immigrant mothers and their Western-raised daughters. This paper tries to discuss the similarities and discrepancies between Chinese and Western Culture from three perspectives.

【Key words】Chinese and Western Culture; collision; mutual understanding

【作者简介】杨济嘉，南京师范大学教师教育学院。

1. Cultural context 文化情境

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall proposed the notion of High Context and Low Context. A high-context communication is one in which most of the information is already in the person while little is in the coded， explicit， transmitted part of the message while a low-context communication is just the opposite where the mass of information is explicitly coded. Chines culture， by nature， is high-context and Western culture is low-context. We commonly hold that the Westerners tend to take the linear mode of talking where speakers directly express thoughts along a relatively set course while the oriental ones are marked by “indirection” and the ideas conveyed are sometimes developed “in terms of what they are not， rather than in terms of what they are”. Below is an example in The Joy Luck Club. That left two on the platter： a large crab with a faded orange color， and number eleven， which had the torn-off leg. My mother shook the platter in front of me ‘Take it， already cold， said my mother…I thought I was doing the right thing， taking the crab with the missing leg. But my mother cried， No！ No！ Big one， you eat it. I cannot finish. The mother tried to persuade her daughter to take the crab by affirming she was already full yet we could easily tell that she did so to let her daughter take the crab without feeling ashamed and uneasy. However， Westerners are relatively much more straightforward and plain in this regard.

人类学家爱德华·霍爾曾提出了高语境与低语境的概念。高语境指的是，在传播时绝大部分信息或存于物质语境中，或内化在个人身上，极少存在于编码清晰的被传递的信息中;低语境则相反。中国文化在本质上是高语境的，而西方文化则是低语境的。我们通常认为西方人倾向于采用直线形的语言模式，说话者沿着一个相对固定的路径表达，而东方人则以不直接为特点，思想常通过不是什么，而非是什么表达。例如《喜福会》中，当盘中剩下两只螃蟹时，妈妈喊道：“不不！大的那只，你吃，我吃不完。”妈妈坚称自己已经吃饱了而想说服女儿吃大的螃蟹。很显然，我们知道她是为了不让女儿吃得有所羞愧或不安而这样说的。西方人，相对而言，在这一方面，要直截了当得多。

2. Face issue 面子問题

Face——the public self-image that every adult tries to protect refers to the emotional and social sense of self that every person has and expects everyone else to recognize. Chinese people regard face differently from Westerners. Below is an example in The Joy Luck Club which reveals how Chinese， especially Chinese parents view face. A friend once told me that my mother and I were alike that we had the same wispy hand gestures， the same girlish laugh and sideways look. When I shyly told my mother this， she seemed insulted and said， ‘You dont even know little percent of me！ How could you be me？ In a gesture to sustain her superior position as a parent， Jingmeis mother denied their great resemblance despite the fact that she felt gratified to hear such nice comments. As a typical Chinese parent， she hid her inner happiness from her child and remained callous，holding that conceding the resemblance is face-threatening， which also manifested the mindset of Chinese peoples senior equals superior.

面子，即每个成年人都试图维护的自我形象，指的是每个人都具有的并希望他人意识到的情感与社会的自我认识。东西方对待面子问题所持的观点有所不同。下面举《喜福会》中的一例以示中国式家长们，是如何看待面子问题的。当精美羞涩地告诉母亲她的朋友说她和她母亲长得很像，母亲却仿佛被羞辱般地说一点不像。为了维护她作为家长的尊位，她抑制着内心的欢喜，拒绝这一赞美。作为一个典型的中国式家长，承认与孩子长相相像是有伤面子的，因此她将欣喜藏于心中，表面上仍是冷酷，这也体现了中国人的年长则尊的观点。……