Chinese Shows: Increasingly Modernized But Not Westernized

A Global Culture? While it might seem that we are experiencing global cultural convergence, let's take a deeper look. Young people everywhere use the same technology and wear similar clothes. But some similarities are superficial. Look beneath the surface image of Asians playing the same games as Westerners, and you will still see recognizably different cultural patterns. Chinese are among the highest users of online games, for instance, but even when they play through avatars and artificial names, experts can easily identify them as Chinese by their behavior online. Our evidence suggests these international cultural artifacts, such as video games and skinny decaf lattes, are the currency of modern culture. Like the pidgin languages developed by early traders to make communication possible across regions, the artifacts have common usage but do not deeply change either side. In the urban Chinese Generation Y, we see this clearly. While their behavior is modern, their values and patterns remain deeply Chinese. So what are traditional Chinese values? Ancient Chinese philosophers, writers over centuries, and modern cultural experts agree on the core themes. This has been confirmed by our work over the last 15 years with groups of Chinese managers, asking them to define "Chinese-ness." According to all these sources, traditional Chinese values focus on family, relationships, achievement, endurance, and sacrifice of one's self for the group. They also include the ideal of the golden mean or harmony, and hierarchy as the basis for social structure and interaction. Gen-Y Chinese have high expectations for their careers and expect to work diligently to achieve these. However, despite their popular image as the "Me Generation," we find that they hold up traditional family values. Asked "what is really important to you," 45% said "family," with "friends" following at 17% and "career" at 12%. Gen Y feels keenly responsible both for their nuclear family and their