Angela Wong, RongRong Huang, Tina Huang, Sandy Leung

Chinese Comprehension
Dr. Liu
December 4th, 2015
Cultural Differences between China and America
1. Introduction
Culture makes all of us different from one another. While it cannot define who we are as
individuals, it is an influencing factor in our lives that can dictate what we believe in, what we
value, and what we do on a daily basis. We decided to examine and compare the cultures
between two countries as our research project topic, in order to gain a better understanding of
different countries lifestyles.
We define culture as an aspect of daily life such as religion, heritage, education and arts
of a group of members. We decided to compare cultures between America and China because we
are all Chinese and are living and attending school in America. We are heavily influenced by
western culture, hence the reason why we want to compare America to China because we want to
learn more about Chinas culture. With the comparison of these two different countries we are
able to see the similarities and differences between the two countries culture.
Key Variables
a. Education: Top School Tuition
b. Religion: The Most Followed
c. Highest Paid Actress
d. Social Media: Highest Users
e. Most Consumed Meat
2. Data Comparison with table & resources
AMERICA
Most consumed meat: Beef
25.8 billion pounds

CHINA
Most consumed meat: Pork
57 million metric tons

Resources
The United States Meat Industry at a Glance.
(n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2015.
https://www.meatinstitute.org/index.php?
ht=d/sp/i/47465/pid/47465
Chinas Astounding Appetite for Pork: Recent
Trends and Implications for International Trade.
(n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2015.
http://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/live/news/
644-chinas-astounding-appetite-for-pork-recenttrends

Most Used Form of Social

Media:
Twitter
316 million users

Most Used Form of Social

Media:
Sina Weibo
600 million users

40 Amazing Weibo Statistics. (2014, April 1).

Retrieved October 24, 2015.
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/weibouser-statistics/
Company | About. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24,
2015.
https://about.twitter.com/company

Highest Paid Actress:

Jennifer Lawrence
$52 Million

Highest Paid Celebrity Actress:

Fan Bing Bing
$21 Million

The World's Highest-Paid Actresses 2015. (n.d.).

Retrieved October 25, 2015.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/jennifer-lawrence/
World's Highest-Paid Actresses 2015. (n.d.).
Retrieved October 25, 2015.
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fihh45gddl/4bingbing-fan/

The Number of Pet Owners in

USA
69,926,000 dogs
74,059,000 cats

The Number of Pet Owners in

China
27 million dogs and 11 million
cats

China's Skyrocketing (Pet) Population. (n.d.).

Retrieved October 25, 2015.
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-0821/chinas-skyrocketing-pet-population
U.S. Pet Ownership Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved
October 25, 2015.
https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Statistics/P
ages/Market-research-statistics-US-petownership.aspx

Religion with the most

followers:
Buddhism
481 millions

Religion with the most

followers:
Christianity
247 millions

3. Attitude Scale Survey with link

http://goo.gl/forms/KBLHDHLDLW

"Essential Stats and Facts About Christianity

Today." About.com Religion & Spirituality. Web.
12 Nov. 2015.
http://christianity.about.com/od/denominations/p/
christiantoday.htm
"Buddhists." Pew Research Centers Religion
Public Life Project RSS. 17 Dec. 2012. Web. 12
Nov. 2015.
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/globalreligious-landscape-buddhist/

1. Do you agree that fast food is more popular in America than in

China?
2. Do you agree that Chinese celebrities can never be as well known
as American celebrities?
3. Do you agree that American popular actresses are better paid than
Chinese popular actresses?
4. Do you agree that there are more people with a college degree in
China than in America?
5. Do you agree that the standards of beauty for women are the same
in both China and America?
6. Do you agree that American college education tuition is too
expensive?
7. Do you agree that America and China both have the same amount
of religious freedom?
8. Do you agree that Americas SAT is more difficult than Chinas
gaokao (college entrance exams)?
9. Do you agree that America is more religiously diverse than China?
10. Do you agree that both Americans and Chinese people are equally
as attached to social media?
4. Attitude Scale Survey Result with table and link
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZvnYKpcZkqCV8qfDHeEv2gHcqePGbJauk3pQ7qq7Wcc
/edit?usp=sharing
Attitude scale questions

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Agree

Strongly agree

1. Do you agree that Americas SAT

is more difficult than Chinas
gaokao ()?

10

2. Do you agree that both Americans

and Chinese people are equally as
attached to social media?

12

3. Do you agree that American

college education tuition is too
expensive?

15

4. Do you agree that America and

China both have the same amount of
religious freedom?

5. Do you agree that American

popular actresses are better paid
than Chinese popular actresses?

6. Do you agree that there are more

people with a college degree in

China than in America?
7. Do you agree that Chinese
celebrities can never be as well
known as American celebrities?

8. Do you agree that the standards of

beauty for women are the same in
both China and America?

9. Do you agree that fast food is

more popular in America than in
China?

10. Do you agree that America is

more religiously diverse than China?

11

25 responses
5. Data Analysis
Our data varies among our responses, for our first question there are equal amount of
respondents who agree and disagree that SATs and Gaokao are more difficult. More respondents
agree that both American and Chinese are equally attached to social media. More respondents
agree that American college tuition are more expensive compared to Chinas. More respondents
disagree that America and China have the same amount of freedom. More respondents agree that
Americas actresses are better paid than Chinas actresses. There are equal amounts of
agreements and disagreements that there are more people with a college degree in China than in
America. More respondents agree that Chinese celebrities can never be as well known as
American celebrities. There are equal amount of disagreement and agreement that the standards
of beauty for women are the same in both China and America. A little more respondents agree
that fast food is more popular in America than in China. The majority of the respondents agree
that America is more religiously diverse than China. Analyzing all the responses, it shows that
plenty of the responders believe that America is a lot more different than China in terms of
money, freedom, publicity, food, and diversity.

6. In-depth Interview Questions

a. What do you think is the most different aspect between Chinese
and American education?
b. Nowaday, westernization is a very prominent process, how do you
think it has impacted Chinese culture? Do you like it or do you think its more
important to preserve local cultures?

c. Recently, China had a red warning for pollution, do you think it

will continue to be a problem in the future for China? Had action be taken to
decrease the amount of CO2 emitted in the air? How has it affected your life now?