ABSTRACT
Figure 6.1 shows the entrance to an American house, and the entrance to a Chinese house. Do they look very different to you? To anthropologist Francis Hsu, these entrances not only lead to American and Chinese homes, they also open the passages to American and Chinese cultures. In his book Americans and Chinese: Passages to differences, Hsu (1981) wrote:
Let us begin with Chinese and American homes. An American house usually has a yard, large or small. It may have a hedge, but rarely is there a wall so high that a passerby cannot see the windows. The majority of American houses have neither hedges nor outside walls.
The entrance to an American house (a), and the entrance to a Chinese house (b). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315782997/f3b439bb-216d-4c43-bbc7-7c5fccb163c9/content/fig6_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>Usually the interior is shielded from exterior view only by window curtains or blinds, and then during but part of the day.
The majority of Chinese houses are, in the first place, surrounded by such high walls that only the roofs are visible from the outside, and solid gates separate the interior grounds from the outside world. In addition, there is usually a shadow wall placed directly in front of the gates on the other side of the street as well as a four-paneled wooden screen standing about five feet behind the gates. The outside shadow wall keeps the home from direct exposure to the unseen spirits. The inside wooden screen shields the interior courtyard from pedestrians’ glances when the gates are ajar.
Inside the home, the contrast between China and America is reversed. The American emphasis within the home is on privacy. There are not only doors to the bathrooms but also to the bedrooms, and often to the living room and even the kitchen. Space and possessions are individualized. Parents have little liberty in the rooms of the children, and children cannot do what they want in those parts of the house regarded as preeminently their parents’ domain. Among some sections of the American population this rule of privacy extends to the husband and wife, so that each has a separate bedroom.
Within the Chinese home, on the other hand, privacy hardly exists at all, except between members of the opposite sexes who are not spouses. Chinese children, even in homes which have ample room, often share the same chambers with their parents until they reach adolescence. Not only do parents have freedom of action with reference to the children’s belongings, but the youngsters can also use the possessions of the parents if they can lay their hands on them. If children damage their parents’ possessions they are scolded, not because they touched things that were not theirs but because they are too young to handle them with proper care ... .
The American child’s physical environment establishes strong lines of individual distinction within the home, but there is very little stress on separation of the home from the outside world. The Chinese child’s environment is exactly the reverse. He finds a home with few demarcation lines within it but separated by high walls and multiple gates from the outside world.
Indeed, findings from recent research comparing East–West differences in the conceptions of the self–other relation agree with Hsu’s observations: In American culture, the boundary between the in-group and out-groups is soft and thin, but the boundary between individuals is sharp and impermeable. In Chinese culture, the walls separating the in-group from out-groups are solid and thick. Inside the walls, the boundary between in-group members is fuzzy.