Abstract: With the development of economy and globalization, cross-cultural communication has become an important part of people’s daily life, but there are some invisible cultural barriers between Chinese and the Western people. This may cause many problems in people’s life. It is important for us to know the cultural differences between China and the West. Family, as the basic social institution and the cell of the society, reflects the cultural characteristics, morality, and religious belief. Therefore, from the perspective of family, we could know the cultural differences deeply. This paper attempts to make a constructive study of Chinese and American family values, including the attitude to marriage, relationships between family members, and family education; it makes an analysis of the reasons for these differences from three aspects comprising history, religion and world outlook, and helps people get a better understanding of Chinese and the Western cultures. |
