The Socio-Cultural Conflict Between New and Traditional Asian-American

I have been living in America for almost a year; the top socio-culture conflict relevant to me lies between new Chinese-American and traditional Chinese-American cultures. Many Chinese friends often complain that it is difficult to live in a traditional Chinese family because there are too many invisible rites and ethical standards to follow after. “Tiger Mother” illustrates well-known common examples of such conflicts in US, which display the typical life styles of traditional Chinese families. For thousands of years, the Chinese have lived in a comparative stable and unchanging life, so they also act and think in traditional ways. Though Chinese people’s life has changed a lot since the open reformation policy, many people’s values towards life stay the same in various aspects. Even though new Chinese-Americans and traditional Chinese-Americans are geographically and physically living together, there are many cultural differences between them due to distinctive life styles and value philosophies. The new generations who are growing up in the US have diverse moral, ethics as well as attitudes in life. The disparate social structures between the modern and the traditional create many culture gaps at home and in society. The essay is mainly focusing at comparing the different families and work aspects between new and old Chinese-Americans, and the fundamental philosophy behind the culture issues to offer practical solutions to bridge the gaps in the future.

First, new and traditional Chinese-Americans hold different attitudes towards work. The modern Chinese believe that work is one of sources of happiness. Prof Xu, Hao, director of social psychology and disability research Centre of Tsinghua University, did a research on what makes people happy, and he concluded that passion and enthusiasm in work are the main factors that make people happy. He found that if a young man is out of his favorable work, his possibility of suicide rates maybe 40 times as greater as those who are not. Most of the new Chinese-Americans have a shine educational background; For example, most of them hold at least a Bachelor degree or MBA from top universities in the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley; however 80% of them would rather choose some interesting but lower salary jobs than the higher paid ones which are boring work to them. In contrast, the traditional Chinese-American hold opposite views on work. Money is always the priority of selecting a job besides some other factors like whether the job is a decent one or whether the working conditions are satisfied. In a survey, 36.73% people work for raising the family, 23.64% aim at having a high quality lifestyle, and only 12.87% endeavor to realize their personal value, which shows that most of traditional Chinese Americans are still struggling for rich life rather than enjoying work. Because of the distinctive attitudes toward work from diverse perspectives, many problems also arise in