HELLO all! Today, I shall reflect on the lessons of the past few weeks. All in all, I learnt a lot in the differences between the perceptions of Chinese and America over self. I enjoyed the presentation made by my friends.


First is the Chinese perception of self. The Chinese perception of self is based on Confucianism. The basics of Confucianism are benevolence, order, righteousness and more. People to show respect to those of a higher status, such as child to parent and employee to employer. The Chinese perception of self is that contributing to the society is more important than contributing to oneself.

Next, is the Western perception of self. It is about the need to attain one's individual rights and liberties. The right to speak, the right to protect self, the right to their property are examples of individual rights.

Also, we learnt about the dichotomy between China and America. Some see America is individualistic, where higher value is placed on personal freedom and liberties. I feel that the Chinese government adopted the Confucian ideology so as to have better control its people, with harmony and respect. This can be seen in corporate culture, where Chinese employees follow orders without asking and are not encouraged to voice out their own opinion to their employers, while in America, employees are encouraged to voice their own opinion or ideas to increase innovation.

Last but no least, we discussed the synthesis of Western and Confucian ideologies in today’s society, of different countries such as Taiwan and Singapore. Singapore is a great example of a Confucian society that adopted Western ideologies. An example inclides in school, where students have to obey their teachers without question, such as handing in of work on time. This shows the Chinese perception of self where students are supposed to respect someone who is older than you. However, students also have personal rights, such as the right to talk. This shows the Western perception of self.

After all, I truly enjoyed myself during the lesson :)

 

CDE Reflection 1

     CDE, also known as Cultural Differentiation Elective, was the course that I decided to pick form my Integrated Humanities Elective course for the second semester of my secondary 3 life. I figured out that the CDE course is an interesting course to take up, and true enough, I did not regret my decision. 


     In the first three weeks of CDE, I have already learnt much more than what I had expected. 


     The week was more of an introductory lesson, where we understood the overall lessons that were about to be taught. Also, we were given the reading The Google Way, where we found out that although Google is one of the most successful search engine in the world, the way of which the company's employee work is so much different from that of other companies in the same sector. They are given free meals at many different restaurants across the campus, subsidized massages, as well as a load of free time to do as they wish. 
These measures were put in place to remove the workload from the employees, enabling them to communicate more with others and discussing about the different projects each employee is working on. Ultimately, this is to promote more eureka moments, resulting to better inventions like Google Earth, the Android and more. 
However, this is totally different as compared to another company called Apple. Apple, one of the most successful consumer electronics company, has a totally different style of success. Their work are done in secret, instead of being announced to the world. Employees fro different sectors are not allowed to discuss their project with one another. 

     The second week, we talked about the difficulties of Levono. This refers to why Lennvo and the other companies face management and innovation difficluties when expanding beyond the domestic into the international sphere, and whether if China would be willing to adopt The Google Way.  The reason why they even encounter with such problems is because there are differences between Chinese companies and typical multinationals, and the fundamental differences lie in the roles that top executives and rank-and-file workers play.

Welcome to my CDE Blog!

Hi Bloggers~

This is my Cultural Differentiation Blog!
In this blog, I will be posting my reflections on my experiences gained from the CDE lessons.

Hope you all enjoy~