Response Essay

Chinese people are known for, and obsessed with, saving money and going after every bargain every chance they get. Deborah Fallows explains in detail the different lifestyle the Chinese are accustomed to and how difficult it is for Americans to adapt in China. In Deborah Fallows book, “Dreaming in Chinese” she elaborates on the differences and the difficulties the Chinese go through in comparison to the Americans. Deborah Fallows portrays the different lifestyles of the Chinese, as she observes the way they express “love” to one another. Fallows explains that the Chinese struggle with the words “I love you”, and “scoff at the Westerners” (Fallows 19) for the way they express “I love you”. The Chinese’s view of love is very complicated, in the fact that they were struggling with the “changing concepts of love and marriage” (Fallows 24) in their country. The concepts of love and marriage in the Chinese culture have changed drastically in in the past few decades. There are so many different views of “love” that come into prospective. Throughout different generations the world has been caught between two different types of love and marriage values. There is the older generation, which follows tradition when it comes to marriage and love, and there is the younger generation that is beginning to actually “marry-for- love” (Fallows 25). These generation gaps are causing a skirmish between each individual, to either follow the new generation who believe in testing new definitions of love, or the old generation that is based on traditions whose “parents would prowl the parks on Sundays to try and match-make the love of their life for their children” (Fallows 27). Also, in America, there are no set limits on divorce, which in China the government used to restrict those marital actions that gave the Chinese less freedom. These changes are continuously being added to the Chinese society because of the new knowledge and beliefs the country is learning from Westerners. Compared to the language of the Chinese, Americans are way too polite when it comes to speaking and having a conversation with someone. The Chinese like to cut straight to the point when having a conversation, instead of just saying “No thank you, I do not want that” they shorten it by just saying “Don’t want” (Fallows 31). The Chinese language was designed to be straight forward and they do not like to waste their time on the little words. Their sentences are shortened saying only what is important. In the English language, one conversation could last for hours, going into detail about everything. As Deborah Fallows began to speak as the Chinese did, she still felt that she was being too blunt and abrupt with her words, but to the Chinese is does not seem that way because that is what they are used to. Being polite in English is viewed completely different from being polite in a Chinese environment. When Americans come to China to speak their language, they try and speak the way one Westerner would speak to another, instead of taking into effect the certain way the Chinese speak to one another. The Chinese believe that when they are talking to Westerners they say way too many “pleases and thank yours, for the Chinese taste” (Fallows 33). Some believe that saying “please and thank you” has the opposite effect of politeness in the Chinese culture. As Fallows continued to explore the language, she found that by adding little things such as the “particle ‘a’ at the end of a word” makes the phrase sound more polite than it may seem. Having the different phrases and the certain way you should say them, makes learning Chinese for Westerners very difficult. To be considered a “real person in China” there are two