Hofstede describes cultural differences in six dimensions: Individualism vs Collectivism, Power Distance, The Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity vs Feminity, Long-Term Orientation and Indulgence vs Restraint. The first four are the primary ones. Based on these dimensions, countries may differentiate from each other in terms of culture. The movie, Iron and Silk, is a good example to determine different culture.
Iron and Silk is a biographic movie which shows an American, Mark, went to China as an English teacher and try to adapt the local culture. In the film, during the interaction between Mark and the other teacher, Mark has learned their way of understanding society and social relations. It is a nice movie to understand the cultural difference between America and China.
Based on this movie, we can explain the cultural difference in terms of Hofstede’s four primary dimensions. When we look at the Individualism vs Collectivism, we realize that American people are individualists whereas Chinese are collectivist. It is seen from the conversation about the kissing. Mark as an American, think that kissing is very natural and it concerns only two people. However, kissing, not just between lovers, even in a family relation, seems something embarrassing in society in Chinese culture. When Mark is questioning this, Ming (his lover) says that it is everyone’s business in China, this shows Chinese collectivist culture.
Another dimension is power distance. From the beginning, we can see the difference between their understanding of respect for the teacher. At the first lesson, Mark wants them to call him only “Mark” instead of “Teacher Mark” but Chinese teachers (who are the students of Mark) refuse that because it is a disrespectful behavior for them and they insist to call him Teacher Mark. Another example is when the Teacher Pan feel offended when realizing that Mark has another teacher. For Mark, this is so normal however in Chinese culture he needs to ask for Teacher Pan’s permission to have another teacher. So, we can say that power distance is lower for American when we compare with Chinese.
When we compare American and Chinese in terms of the uncertainty avoidance, Chinese has more rigid rules, I think it related to their political pressure. Teacher Pan is trying to learn English, when he repeats what Mark teach him, Mark says “Ok” and Teacher Pan get angry because he wants to be perfect. Hence, Chinese doesn’t accept less, they have higher uncertainty avoidance. And from this example, we can see that Chinese is driven by achievement and success, therefore they have a masculine culture according to Hofstede’s classification. Moreover, America has also the same pattern and we can see from Mark’s study of martial art, he insists to learn the martial art, and Chinese very well, therefore we can say that American also focus on success.
To watch the movie: Iron and Silk
Sinem Atılgan Uşaklı 