WWSD

Is China very multicultural or more homogeneous? I'm guessing that the cultures change with region, much the same as they do in other places around the world.

How different is southern China from northern China? Is Hong Kong way different than, say, Beijing?

I'm not going there anytime soon, I'm just curious about a culture that is quite far away and seems a lot different than my own.

Secular Pinoy

Probably so, since there are lots of different languages in the Mainland, and not just dialects, but fully robust languages. And in my exerience living in a country with over seventy or so languages, each group of people with a shared language has several distinctive cultural traits and manners.

If ever China is homogenous, it's probably out of trying to fit in with what the powers that be in Beijing wants. Better go with the flow, or they might be next if Beijing decides to have another Cultural Revolution.

rfwu

Chinese culture, in a way, is similar to American culture when it comes to either being multicultural or being homogenous. It really depends on their past experiences and time period. Like right now, China is a relatively closed culture, though it's in the process of being more open. This is not just because of the Communist regime, but also their experience in WWII and the 19th century. Basically, nobody treated China very well. Opium was forced onto China by the British, Chinese immigrants to America were treated lower than most ill-treated immigrant groups, and Japan killed about 10 million CIVILIANS in WWII, which was surpassed only be the 14 million of Jews and the casualties of the Soviet Union. (these statistics are only based on civilian deaths). If people beat you up every time you walked out the door, you would stay inside too! China wasn't always this way. During the Tang Dynasty, China was a very open society, in some ways even surpassing that the U.S. today. It had Arab merchants, African visitors, and even traded with the West (funny, because the west had no idea that China even existed!) through those mentioned Arab merchants. America is similar because it also was once a closed society. Ever heard of the isolationist policy? Every country has their ups and downs. China has been around much longer than the U.S. has, so it's more likely they it has experienced far more extreme versions of openess and closeness.

rfwu

oh, and the thing about the different regions? Very different! Try to guess how many minority groups there are in China! 55 in all! Han being the majority. I am Han, so I would know some stuff! The country of China itself has very extreme differenced in climate, way more than N. America. Huge mountains, vast deserts, lush rainforests, and large ports. Hotter, colder, denser, and higher than what we have here in the states.

rfwu

people tend to change with the climate any. "Changes in lattitude, changes in attitude". Shanghai to Hong Kong to Xian is like Los Angelos to Houston to New York.

fando

rfwu, what's the difference between the Manchurian and Han cultures these days? I learned in one class about the Manchurian dynasties and so on and so forth and was wondering what became of that northeastern culture?

rfwu

I think that the northeastern culture is that Manchurian. Manchurians (Man for short) are also a minority group. They actually have their own culture separate from China, much like Korea or Japan. The C'hing dynasty is the one where the Manchurians actually took over China. Technically, China was conquered, but the Man never did any of the typical dictatorship things and anything. All they really did was take over the government and made themselves first class citizens. They even adopted most aspects of Chinese civilization. However, they did require the Han to wear those queues (long braids), which was not Chinese in origin and was actually hated by the Han. So the images of Chinese immigrants in the early twentieth century were very inaccurate depictions of Chinese culture.

WWSD

rfwu,

When did you move to CA?
Was it difficult to deal with the change in culture?
Is it different socializing with people here as opposed to where you're from?

Sakpo

Even within Han Chinese there is a lot of diversity, in terms of dialects spoken, regional art, regional cuisine, etc. Like rfwu pointed out, China is geographically diverse, and geography has a major impact on day to day life, and thus culture. People who live in a desert climate, in the jungle, or in the snow, on the coast or far inland, will have their differences, even if they're the same ethnic group in the same country. There will be cultural differences between areas that have known hunger and areas which haven't, between those that border other countries and those that don't. In recent history China has also been divided up politically a few times, and so that has resulted in differences in culture and such. Look at Taiwan and Hong Kong as opposed to mainland China, for instance. Basically, yes, culture does change with region, but amongst Han Chinese the people do basically share a common culture, despite their differences. Also, keep in mind that Chinese people are all around the world, and usually still maintain a distinct sense of being "Chinese," and are recognized as such by Chinese in China. The cultures of Overseas Chinese vary a lot (since they often mix with Chinese originating from various parts of China, plus they interact with the non Chinese culture(s) ).

rfwu

Well, I didn't actually live in China, though I did live in another country. I learned most of this stuff from my parents and Chinese Civilization class in community college. My statement of being Han was only on an ethnicity basis, so I guess that it doesn't really prove anything! I moved to California about five years ago, and I must say that the States have a lot more advertizing and television and shopping centers than where I used to live. But otherwise, the people here aren't really that different.