ABSTRACT
After
a brief introduction, “cultures: multi-culture, cross-culture, interculture”,
this essay proceeds in two major sections, “China and the West in Contrast” on how
China and the West inter-differ, and
“China and the West in Interculture” on how China and the West interculture. First, three ac- tual
examples are cited to show how the West is digital, analytical, in either-or,
while China is concrete, subtle, in both-and. Next, logic, time, music, kids,
etc., are cited to tell of how China and the West inter-differ to
inter-critique to inter-correct, to compose the hope of the world. The vast,
exciting, and crucial theme of world interculture, concrete and general, is
thus compressed in less than twenty pages. Global
interculture is so vast that any essay on it risks playing with vague generality.
This essay concretely details two extremely contrasting cultures, the West and
China, even on general time, logic, and grammar, starkly how the centralities
of eternity and time are reversed, how logic is all bare in the West but turned
invisible as bone-structure in China, and how the West strictly enforces
explicit grammar while China subtly slides from one word-category to another. Typically,
elusive “no do” unintelligible in the West but constantly concrete is story-ex-
plained to highlight the West-China contrast. Concrete elucidation of general “global
interculture” makes this short essay significant.