Abstract
Since the beginning of human culture, death is mysterious for human. Although human tries their best to uncover the mystery. None of them is fully successful. Consequently human realized that death was inevitable. People tended to choose transcendence. And the way one chooses for transcendence reflects the unique cultural features between Chinese and western cultures.
Funeral customs had the same history of human culture. They reflected the prototypical human perceptions about the world and their relations. Differences between Chinese and western funeral customs based on their different understandings about death. This paper tries to make a comparative study of funeral customs between Chinese and western countries to obtain the original causes—the attitude to death, for the differences. Then grasp the different characters of the two kinds of culture.
The differences between Chinese and western countries lead to the different attitudes to death. Chinese attitude to death is influenced by Chinese traditional culture and multi-religions. While western attitude to death is mainly affected by Christianity and individualism. Although they are widely divergent, through comparative study, common factors are found, which could be borrowed by Chinese. This paper tries to compare Chinese attitude to death with western, learn from western advantages, and then provide suggestions for Chinese death education to help youngsters build right view of life and death
Key Words: Funeral customs, attitudes to death, Chinese and western culture death education
，英语论文题目，英语论文题目 |
