A long and scholarly piece by Eva Kitt WahMan covers the history of Chinese conventionsgoverning female “beauty” from Confuciusthrough Maoism to the present day. Classicalmanuals provide highly specific requirements forcourtesans and concubines. The shrunken, pulpyappendages produced by foot-binding practiceswere regarded as the most sexually stimulatingfeatures of the female body. In 1949, following theinauguration of the Communist regime, womenwere expected to shun ornament and make-up, tohave short hair, wear party uniforms, and to lookas much like men as possible. The ideal (...) for thecontemporary Chinese woman is quite a lot likethe ideal for the courtesan of tradition, but the de-tails are drawn from western fashion magazines.Wah believes that such liberation, although it hasits advantages, is mainly nominal and fosters con-fusion. She writes: “Although Chinese womentoday are developing new self-confidence, they donot seem to be aware of the fact that one can be-come a slave of the fashion industry, which merelyrepeats the bodily constraints of past times in anew form” (p. 194). [review by Mary Mothersill, 2001 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59 (2):211-214.]. (shrink)

We've had quite a number of outbreaks of "culture fever": The first one was apparently in 1985, when I was studying overseas, and friends told me the fever was raging at home in China. When I came home in 1988, I was in time for the second one. And over the last two years there has been a fever of cultural criticism, or "discussions on the humanist spirit." It looks as though the phenomenon of culture fever has certain (...) similarities to a flu epidemic. The first two fevers were fairly respectable, and at least provided information on some of the things that had been achieved in the social sciences overseas; but the latest one has been no good at all, consisting as it does mostly of the airing of complaints. It is claimed that the attitude of society toward intellectuals in the humanities is incorrect; that the intellectuals themselves are incorrect; that since Confucius said "The gentleman understands what is moral; the small man understands what is profitable" [Analects IV. 16], we should be trying to emulate the gentleman. Probably other things too have been said, but I believe that these have been the main points of most discussions during this outbreak of cultural criticism fever. Wang Shuo has come in for a good deal of abuse this time, in the same way that, in Water Margin, Lei Heng the "Winged Tiger," county head of Yuncheng, is jeered at in the courtesan's house when someone tells him, "It would be easier for a dog to grow horns than for you to know the proper way to behave here!" Culture is just this sort of establishment, and the riff-raff are definitely not allowed to set foot inside it. Looked at in this way, culture is a set of values centered on the self, and implies a closing of the ranks against outsiders. But I have no wish to think too badly of others, so I shall just say that the "culture" which is so much in favor this time is a kind of moral strength which demands that we should all preserve our personal integrity and not be tainted by material desires. We cultural workers are like Tang dynasty Buddhist monks, and the material desires of the everyday world are like the female scorpion spirit. We must not be seduced by the sorceress and sleep with her, for then, when we have lost our original yang essence and the pure seed has left us, we will no longer be virgins, and will not be fit to go to the Western Heaven and worship the Buddha. […] But if I go on talking such rubbish, other people may not acknowledge me as a cultural worker and may deprive me of the right to discuss cultural issues. What I am trying to say is that if this fever continues, I shall soon no longer know what culture is. (shrink)

The Confucian culture, rich in its contents and great in its significance, exerted on the thinking, culture and political life of ancient China immense influences, unparalleled by any other school of thought or culture. Confucian theories on morality and ethics, with 'goodness' as the core and 'rites' as the norm, served as the 'key notes' of the traditional medical ethics of China. The viewpoints of Confucianism on benevolence and material interests, on good and evil, on kindheartedness, and (...) on character cultivation were all inherited by the medical workers and thus became prominent in Chinese traditional medical ethics. Hence, it is clear that the medical profession and Confucianism have long shared common goals in terms of ethics. Influenced by the excellent Confucian thinking and culture, a rather highly-developed system of Chinese traditional medical ethics emerged with a well-defined basic content, and the system has been followed and amended by medical professionals of all generations throughout Chinese history. This system, just to mention briefly, contains concepts such as the need: to attach great importance to the value of life; to do one's best to rescue the dying and to heal the wounded; to show concern to those who suffer from diseases; to practise medicine with honesty; to study medical skills painstakingly; to oppose a careless style of work; to comfort oneself in a dignified manner; to respect local customs and to be polite; to treat patients, noble or humble, equally, and to respect the academic achievements of others, etc. Of course, at the same time, Confucian culture has its own historical and class limitations, which exerted negative influences on traditional medical ethics. Now, if we are to keep up with the development of modern medicine, a serious topic must be addressed. That is how to retain the essence of our traditional medical ethics so as to maintain historic continuity and yet, at the same time, add on the new contents of medical ethics so as to incorporate modern features into our system. Therefore, when trying to reform medical practice in China, we are faced with the urgent need to inherit and promulgate the essence of Confucian ethics--discarding its obsolete concepts--while at the same time building up the new medical ethics that can meet the requirements of the outside world and the future. (shrink)

Drawing on ancient texts and modern interpretations, this work explores the foundations for war in China’s strategic culture-- Shih , Li , and Tao . Shih theory bases strategy on enemy intent, in contrast to Euro-American Li strategies based on forces. The work uses Shih theory to explain the anomalies that continue to perplex Euro-American observers in modern China’s uses of force.

Against the background that the top-level semantic framework of Chinese traditional culture is not comprehensive and unified, this study aims to preserve and disseminate cultural heritage information about Chinese traditional culture through the development of a domain ontology which is constructed from ancient books. A combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches was used to construct the ontology for Chinese traditional culture. An investigation of historians’ needs, and LDA topic clustering model were conducted, understanding the (...) specific needs of historians, collecting the topic, concepts and relationships. CIDOC CRM was reused to construct the basic framework of CTCO. Ontology structure and function were adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of CTCO. Evaluation results show that the ontology meets all the quality criteria of OntoMetrics, and the experts agreed on content representation. CTCO contributes to the organization of traditional Chinese culture and the construction of related databases. The study also forms a common path and puts forward proposals for the construction of domain ontology, which has great social relevance. (shrink)

Religious symbols hold a specific significant image as a conveyer of religious and cultural belief, possessing both the religious power and cultural capital. Throughout the development of Christian culture, Chinese religious symbols of God have undergone the translation and variation. Drawing upon the concept of symbolic capital, this study focuses on the Chinese translation of God in the different fields of Chinese Christian culture by means of qualitative research, exploring the factors that influenced the spread (...) of Christian culture in China. This study finds the variation of God in different historical fields of Chinese Christian culture and elucidates the process of cultural capital accumulation associated with different religious symbols of God in contemporary Christian culture. Therefore, this study argues that Chinese translation of religious symbols concerning God in Christian culture is not merely translation of religious symbols, but rather the outcome of power struggle for religious authority and cultural capital. However, this study must emphasize that Term Question represents a significant episode in the propagation of Christian culture in China, the numerous historical research materials are not all covered in this paper. Therefore, by examining the translation and variation of God as language symbol in Christian culture, according to language and symbolic capital, this article argues that it reflects not only the dilemma of translation and language, but also the issues of religious power and cultural capital. Hence, by examining the historical missionary experience in China, valuable insights regarding language translation challenges and cultural assimilation issues in the global evangelization of Christianity can be gleaned, providing a basis for enhanced problem-solving approaches within missionary endeavors. (shrink)

China was the first to produce tea and consumed the largest quantities and its craftsmanship was the finest. During the development of Chinese history, Chinese Tea culture came into being. In ancient China, drinking tea is not only a very common phenomenon but also an elegant taste for men of letters and officials. Chinese tea culture is extensive and profound and it is necessary for foreigners to understand Chinese tea culture for the purpose (...) of smooth and deepen the communication with the Chinese people. (shrink)

This paper mainly introduces the application of immersive media in Chinese public cultural participation from the perspective of cultural education, as well as the important value of the application of immersive media in expanding the breadth, accuracy, and depth of education and thereby improving the quality of education. On this basis, the realistic path of the role of immersive media technology in further realizing public cultural participation is discussed. First of all, through a questionnaire survey, it analyzes the problems (...) existing in Chinese public cultural participation from the perspective of cultural education and the application of immersive media in Chinese public cultural participation. Secondly, from the aspects that the application of immersive media can extend the space of cultural participation, enrich the content of cultural participation and strengthen the value recognition of cultural participation, it demonstrates that immersive media helps to solve the dilemma of Chinese public cultural participation as a whole and thus improve the quality of education. This will bring new possibilities for expanding Chinese public cultural participation and promoting public social education and cultural quality education. Finally, it discusses the further development of immersive media technology in the field of cultural education from the aspects of optimizing the ecology of immersive media development, promoting the R&D and application of immersive media technology, and promoting the integration of immersive media with cultural participation space and cultural education content. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, China was on the brink of change. Different ideologies - those of radicalism, conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy - were much debated in political and intellectual circles. Whereas previous works have analyzed these trends in isolation, Edmund S. K. Fung shows how they related to one another and how intellectuals in China engaged according to their cultural and political persuasions. The author argues that it is this interrelatedness and interplay between different schools of thought that (...) are central to the understanding of Chinese modernity, for many of the debates that began in the Republican era still resonate in China today. The book charts the development of these ideologies and explores the work and influence of the intellectuals who were associated with them. In its challenge to previous scholarship and the breadth of its approach, the book makes a major contribution to the study of Chinese political philosophy and intellectual history. (shrink)

ArgumentScholars of modern Chinese publishing and book culture focus on the dramatic transformations that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the new technologies that enabled “mass” printing and the development of “modern” genres of print. They often neglect the fact that xylography remained a working technology through much of the Republican period and even into the People's Republic of China. Here I examine the continued use of woodblock printing and the continuing popularity of “traditional” (...) textual genres from two perspectives. First, from a “bottom up” perspective, I examine the production and sale of woodblock texts in rural markets, often in the face of efforts by both the Republic and the People's Republic to prohibit their use. Second, from a perspective from the top, I consider the deliberate choices made by the government, some elite book collector-publishers, and Daoist and Buddhist devotees to print certain works xylographically. (shrink)

The research conducted in this article is aimed at analyzing color symbols in Russian, French and Chinese linguistic cultures using the analysis of phraseology and proverbs. The research methodology is based on a comparative analysis of phraseological units and proverbs containing color components in these languages. In the course of the study, both common and unique features in the color symbolism of each of the linguistic cultures under consideration were identified. Through a comparative analysis of phraseology and proverbs in (...) different languages, it was possible to better understand how color embodies cultural norms, worldview and historical contexts in each nation. This allowed us to see which aspects of color are particularly significant for each culture and what associations and symbolic meanings are associated with them. Special attention is paid to the analysis of differences and similarities in the interpretation of color in the idiomatic expressions of each language. This allows us to understand which cultural and historical factors form unique views and ideas about color in each of the linguistic cultures under consideration. The study also highlights that the interpretation of color symbols in idiomatic expressions depends on the cultural and historical contexts of each language. Idioms are a reflection of the collective consciousness and worldview of the people, and the study of color phenomena in idioms helps to better understand national identity and linguistic evolution. In addition, the study found that the red color can acquire different meanings and connotations in different languages, despite common dictionary definitions. This indicates that the use and attitude towards the color red depends on the cultural and historical characteristics of each language group. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that it combines linguistic analysis with the analysis of cultural characteristics and uses the methodology of synergetic symbolism. This approach allows us to understand how the interaction of different colors creates new symbolic meanings and associations specific to each culture. (shrink)

Though the globalization of economics has provided us a posttraditional perspective to understand the traditional culture, it doesn’t mean that tradition has lost its special value of existence. In order to interpret Chinese traditional culture on the background of globalization, we need to re-identify its value properly to realize the combination of traditional spirit and modern idea, and then we could make the modern transformation of Chinese traditional culture possible. During the process of traditional (...) class='Hi'>culture’s modern transformation, the most important thing is to make the choice of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. (shrink)

Comment on “Ansai peasant paintings: inheritance of Chinese primitive culture and primitive philosophy”.

This article is the first exploration of the Chinese notion of apology from a comparative legal perspective. By reviewing the significance of apology in the context of Chinese culture, the article presents a three-dimensional structure of apology that, in contrast to the understanding the research community now has, defines acknowledgement of fault, admission of responsibility, and offer of reparation as three essential elements of an apology. It is the combination of these three elements that enables apology to (...) serve as a form of reparation. The article further places the three-dimensional apology in the context of the Chinese concept of “the relations of humanity,” arguing that an apology accompanying admission of fault and responsibility may help to restore the harmony of relations and, by so doing, resolve medical disputes positively. (shrink)

Xu Bing ranks among the most recognized contemporary Chinese artists in the world today. His lifelong interest in word and image paired with his experiences as part of the Chinese diaspora have made him the subject of numerous publications dedicated to exploring culture and communication. With Xu Bing and Contemporary Chinese Art, editors Hsingyuan Tsao and Roger T. Ames bring a welcome addition to this corpus. Compiling seven essays from scholars of art history and philosophy, this (...) volume in the SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture offers a remarkable range of approaches for thinking about not only Xu Bing's work but also contemporary art and culture at large.In their introduction, the editors foreground .. (shrink)

Resumen: La cultura filosófica tradicional china se refiere al pensamiento filosófico y las tradiciones culturales de la antigua China que incluye diferentes escuelas filosóficas y sistemas de pensamiento como el confucianismo, el taoísmo, el mohismo y el legalismo. Como sistema de pensamiento único en la antigua China, la cultura filosófica tradicional china es una herencia acumulada por la nación china. La cultura Han Fu es un componente importante de la cultura tradicional china, que abarca orígenes históricos, características morfológicas, materiales y (...) técnicas, costumbres, connotaciones culturales y valores espirituales. Puede aplicarse y heredarse en la sociedad contemporánea, así como integrarse e interactuar con otros elementos culturales tradicionales. Como importante portadora del pensamiento filosófico tradicional chino, la cultura Han Fu es también una manifestación concreta de la cultura nacional china y del espíritu humanista moderno. Como forma de heredar y exhibir la cultura de la vestimenta tradicional china, la representación de la cultura Han Fu ha recibido cada vez más atención y afecto y ha desempeñado un papel importante en la larga historia, y su evolución y desarrollo también han sido influenciados y moldeados por la cultura filosófica tradicional china. Por tal motivo, este artículo utilizó el enfoque hermenéutico, el materialismo dialéctico y el materialismo histórico, explorando las manifestaciones de la cultura filosófica tradicional china en la cultura Han Fu, con el fin de comprender y heredar mejor la cultura Han Fu. El artículo presenta primero los pensamientos filosóficos tradicionales chinos, que incluyen principalmente el confucianismo, el taoísmo y el pensamiento budista; luego se elaboraron varios conceptos importantes en el pensamiento filosófico; luego, consideraremos y analizaremos las ideas filosóficas contenidas en la cultura Han Fu, y señalaremos la encarnación y aplicación de las ideas filosóficas de “unidad del cielo y el hombre” y “neutralidad” en la cultura Han Fu; Finalmente, el valor del desempeño de Han Fu se elabora a partir de dos aspectos: su expresión de valor, forma de expresión y contenido. Mediante el estudio, se descubrió que la cultura Han Fu puede presentar y expresar sus ideas centrales de una manera específica para demostrar mejor el pensamiento filosófico tradicional chino, lo que ayuda a instar mejor a las personas a utilizar la cultura Han Fu como herramienta y utilizarla para publicitar. sus ideas y conceptos relevantes. (shrink)

Resumen: China es conocida desde la antigüedad como un país de indumentaria, y su cultura indumentaria es deslumbrante. El arte y la cultura de cualquier nación tienen su trasfondo específico de pensamiento filosófico. Detrás de la cultura indumentaria china, también se encuentra la connotación ideológica del antiguo pueblo chino. La antigua sociedad china abarcó cinco mil años, la tendencia social del pensamiento cambiaba constantemente, y el sistema de vestimenta también se actualizaba constantemente. A través del estudio del trasfondo histórico ideológico (...) de la cultura del traje de la antigua China, podemos ampliar el ángulo de investigación de la filosofía de la antigua China y comprender más ampliamente la cultura del traje tradicional. (shrink)

BackgroundMobile health (mHealth) apps have shown the advantages of improving medication compliance, saving time required for diagnosis and treatment, reducing medical expenses, etc. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that mHealth apps should be evaluated prior to their implementation to ensure their accuracy in data analysis.ObjectiveThis study aimed to translate the patient version of the interactive mHealth app usability questionnaire (MAUQ) into Chinese, and to conduct cross-cultural adaptation and reliability and validity tests.MethodsThe Brislin’s translation model was used in (...) this study. The cross-cultural adaptation was performed according to experts’ comments and the results of prediction test. The convenience sampling method was utilized to investigate 346 patients who used the “Good Doctor” (“Good Doctor” is the most popular mHealth app in China), and the reliability and validity of the questionnaire were evaluated as well.ResultsAfter translation and cross-cultural adaptation, there were a total of 21 items and 3 dimensions: usability and satisfaction (8 items), system information arrangement (6 items), and efficiency (7 items). The content validity index was determined to be 0.952, indicating that the 21 items used to evaluate the usability of the Chinese version of the MAUQ were well correlated. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the total questionnaire was 0.912, which revealed that the questionnaire had a high internal consistency. The values of test-retest reliability and split-half reliability of the Chinese version of the MAUQ were 0.869 and 0.701, respectively, representing that the questionnaire had a good stability.ConclusionThe translated questionnaire has good reliability and validity in the context of Chinese culture, and it could be used as a usability testing tool for the patient version of interactive mHealth apps. (shrink)

This empirical study explores the effect of cultural intelligence (CQ) on migrant workers’ innovative behavior, as well as the mediating role of knowledge sharing on the CQ-innovative behavior relationship. Besides, it also examines the extent to which the mediating process is moderated by climate for inclusion. Using survey data collected from Chinese migrant workers and their supervisors working in South Korea (n = 386), migrant workers’ CQ is found to positively impact their innovative behavior through enhanced knowledge sharing. However, (...) it is observed that this indirect relationship is significant, only for migrant workers in a strong climate for inclusion. Thus, these findings reveal the underlying mediation and moderation mechanism and consequently unveil the important role of migrant workers’ CQ in shaping their behavior. This study provides insightful and practical implications to a multicultural organization, where culturally diverse migrant workers work together. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw by Hua LiShaoming DuanHua Li. Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 248 pp., hardcover, $68.00. ISBN 9781487508234.Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw focuses on the years after Mao Zedong's demise, from 1976 to 1983, during which China's politics and culture underwent unusual changes. Li's book is (...) a laudable scholarly endeavor that provides readers with a new interpretation of science fiction (SF) during the post-Mao era. Li connects the production of Chinese SF to a wider context, including mainstream literary perspectives, domestic political demands and predicaments, changing international relations, and Western SF traditions. From my point of view, this book contributes to existing scholarship in four different ways.First, Li offers an explanation for the launching of the "Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign" in 1983, and for the withering of SF in the 1980s, that is different from that of many other scholars. According to Zhan Ling, Chinese [End Page 270] officials liked art that closely connected to politics in the 1980s.1 Yet SF writers were very interested in thriller themes during this period, pursuing literary value while neglecting political significance. Science fiction deviated from reality, which went against Deng Xiaoping's idea of "seeking truth from facts," proposed in 1978. For these reasons, Zhan argues, SF was labeled as "bourgeois literature" in the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign and severely criticized.2 Wu Yan offers another explanation, focusing on how, in 1983, renowned scientist Qian Xuesen published an article in People's Daily that accuses then-current SF of being "specimens of pseudoscience" and misleading teenagers.3 Qian's viewpoint caught Deng's attention; he claimed in the same year that SF was a pollution of science.4 Moreover, a growing number of books and films promoted sexual liberation and Western democracy at this time. Faced with this "crisis," Deng called on all levels of judicial and propaganda departments to thwart the spread of these ideas and works in society. This campaign lasted for three years, with approximately twenty-four thousand people being executed for "mental impurity." It dealt a heavy blow to SF as well, causing the number of SF writers as well as the social impact of SF to decline significantly.5Compared to Zhan and Wu, Li places more emphasis on the fact that Deng wanted to achieve political and ideological unity through this campaign. In the 1980s, many voices were opposing Deng at the top of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Although Deng was not the highest leader of the CPC in name, he controlled the standing of the CPC. Many high-level officials accused Deng of destroying socialist democracy. Deng launched the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign under the pretext of fighting the spread of "Western-inspired liberal ideas among the Chinese Populace" (14), while aiming to purge high-level dissidents from the CPC. This campaign, like Mao's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s, became increasingly violent and difficult to control as it went on. Many officials in the CPC took advantage of the campaign to attack people, policies, and behavior that they disliked (15). Li's account is very convincing because it aligns with the political changes that have occurred since then. Hu Yaobang was dismissed in January 1987 due to "indulging bourgeois liberalization and weakening the Party's leadership."6 As the general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPC, Hu admired the Western political system with its separation of powers and intended to establish such a system in China to achieve democratic modernization. However, his efforts were obstructed by Deng. The establishment of a modern democratic system would have signified the end of the CPC dictatorship. [End Page 271]Further, Li points out that SF in the post-Mao era lacked a critical awareness of ethical problems. SF writers of this era tended to ignore the moral and ethical implications of the use of modern technology, or they took up modern technology without the reflectiveness and attention to detail that makes modern technology something more than a normative... (shrink)

This paper aims at analyzing the distinctive features of the western and Chinese philosophies, which underlie the western and Chinese cultures. Westerners focus on the form, and they are deeply influenced by geometry and materialized philosophies. Meanwhile, Chinese people focus on connotation, and they are greatly influenced by the yin-and-yang principle.

The study of cultural evolution has taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse approach in explicating phenomena of cultural transmission and adoptions. Inspired by this computational movement, this study uses Bayesian networks analysis, combining both the frequentist and the Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, to investigate the highly representative elements in the cultural evolution of a Vietnamese city’s architecture in the early 20th century. With a focus on the façade design of 68 old houses in Hanoi’s Old Quarter (...) (based on 78 data lines extracted from 248 photos), the study argues that it is plausible to look at the aesthetics, architecture, and designs of the house façade to find traces of cultural evolution in Vietnam, which went through more than six decades of French colonization and centuries of sociocultural influence from China. The in-depth technical analysis, though refuting the presumed model on the probabilistic dependency among the variables, yields several results, the most notable of which is the strong influence of Buddhism over the decorations of the house façade. Particularly, in the top 5 networks with the best Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) scores and p<0.05, the variable for decorations (DC) always has a direct probabilistic dependency on the variable B for Buddhism. The paper then checks the robustness of these models using Hamiltonian MCMC method and find the posterior distributions of the models’ coefficients all satisfy the technical requirement. Finally, this study suggests integrating Bayesian statistics in the social sciences in general and for the study of cultural evolution and architectural transformation in particular. (shrink)

We would like to open some questions here about the institutional and cultural conditions of anything that might be called cultural studies or multiculturalism. By introducing cultural studies and multiculturalism many intellectuals aim at a more democratic culture. We share this aim. In this essay, however, we would like to argue that the projects of cultural studies and multiculturalism require: a more international model of cultural studies than the dominant Anglo-American versions; renewed attention to the institutional environments of cultural (...) studies; and a questioning of the relations between multiculturalism and identity politics. We seek less to “fix” these problems than to provide a critical analysis of the languages, the methods of criticism, and the assumptions about identity, culture, and politics that present the problems to us. Because the thickets entangling what our group calls cultural studies are so deeply rooted in Western academia, which to a large degree constitutes our own group, the counterexample of cultural criticism in other contexts can be more than usually instructive. We begin by considering the position of cultural studies in China, since our group includes a number of Chinese intellectuals, on whose experience the following section is largely based. The Chicago Cultural Studies Group began meeting in June 1990. It includes Lauren Berlant, David Bunn, Vinay Dharwadker, Norma Field, Dilip Gaonkar, Marilyn Ivy, Benjamin Lee, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Xinmin Liu, Mathew Roberts, Sharon Stephens, Katie Trumpener, Greg Urban, Michael Warner, Jianyang Zha, and Jueliang Zhou. (shrink)

This book uses Western philosophical tradition to make a case for a form of thinking properly associated with ancient China.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there are cross-cultural differences between Chinese and Canadian business students with respect to their assessment of the ethicality of various business behaviors. Using a sample of 147 business students, the results indicate cultural crossvergence; the Chinese (72 students) and Canadians (75 students) exhibit different ethical attitudes toward questionable business practices at the individual level but not at the corporate level. A social desirability bias (a tendency to deny socially unacceptable (...) actions and to admit to socially desirable ones) is also found to be a cross-cultural phenomenon, with the Canadians demonstrating a greater bias than the Chinese. Finally, this bias causes respondents to increase their assessment of the un-ethicality of questionable business activities. (shrink)

The cultural element is the minimum unit of a cultural system. The systematic categorizing, organizing, and retrieval of the traditional Chinese cultural elements are essential prerequisites for the realization of effective extracting and rational utilization, as well as the prerequisite for exploiting the contemporary value of the traditional Chinese culture. To build an objective, integrated, and reliable classification method and a system of traditional Chinese cultural elements, this study takes the text of Taiping Imperial Encyclopedia in (...) Northern Song Dynasty as the primary data source. The unsupervised word segmentation methods are used to detect Out-of-Vocabulary, and then the segmentation results by the THULAC tool with and without custom dictionary are compared. The TF-IDF algorithm is applied to extract the keywords of cultural elements and the Ochiia coefficient is introduced to create complex networks of traditional Chinese cultural elements. After analyzing the topological characteristics of the network, the community detection algorithm is used to identify the topics of cultural elements. Finally, a “Means-Ends” two-dimensional orthogonal classification system is established to categorize the topics. The results showed that the degree distribution in the complex network of Chinese traditional cultural elements is a scale-free network with γ = 2.28. The network shows a structure of community and hierarchy features. The top 12 communities have taken up to 91.77% of the scale of the networks. Those 12 topics of the traditional Chinese cultural elements are circularly distributed in the orthogonal system of cultural elements’ categorization. (shrink)

This book is divided into three main parts: an introduction to theories of culture, a section on Chinese culture, and one on cultural construction. The first part can be interpreted as an attempt to explore the meta-theoretical system of culture at the philosophical level. Based on the concept of "culture as ways of living," the book further defines "culture" as "the preparation of people," including the processes by which people adapt to local cultural and (...) social customs. It stresses the subjectivity of culture, and the cultural rights and responsibilities of humankind. The second part takes on the subjective perspective of contemporary Chinese culture, interpreting it within the context of the historical situation of the Chinese people and nation, before engaging in a systematic reflection on several fundamental issues of Chinese culture. It closes by evaluating Chinese cultural practices and formulating a type of contemporary cultural self-identity. The book's third part focuses on the interconnection between the revival of the Chinese nation and the modernization of Chinese society, analyzing the conditions and challenges for the three primary types of contemporary Chinese culture: material culture, political culture and spiritual culture. Lastly, the book puts forward suggestions concerning several of the critical problems facing a society in transition. (shrink)

This study developed and tested a model of culture’s effect on budgeting systems, and hypothesized that system variables and reactions to them are influenced by culture-specific work-related and ethical values. Most organizational and behavioral views of budgeting fail to acknowledge the ethical components of the problem, and have largely ignored the role of culture in shaping organizational and individual values. Cross-cultural differences in reactions to system design variables, and in the behaviors motivated or mitigated by those variables, (...) has implications for the design and effectiveness of budgeting systems. The data largely support our research model, demonstrating the hypothesized national cultural differences in system design variables (e.g., participation, standards tightness, budget emphasis, etc. which we characterized as the opportunity and incentives to create budgetary slack), and the expected relationship between incentives (but not opportunity) to create slack and slack creation behavior. The data demonstrate hypothesized cultural differences in ethical ideology but show ethical ideology related to slack creation behavior only for U.S. managers. A discussion of the results and their implications is included. (shrink)

This book examines Tangut translations of secular Chinese texts excavated from the ruins of Khara-khoto. After providing an overview of Tangut history and an introduction to the emergence of the field of Tangut studies, it presents four case studies grouped around different themes. A central concern of the book is the phenomenon of Tangut appropriation of Chinese written culture through translation and the reasons behind this.

Cultural competence, a clinical skill to recognise patients' cultural and religious beliefs, is an integral element in patient‐centred medical practice. In the area of death and dying, physicians' understanding of patients' and families' values is essential for the delivery of culturally appropriate care. Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition marked by the decline of cognitive functions. When the condition progresses and deteriorates, patients with advanced dementia often have eating and swallowing problems and are at high risk of developing malnutrition. Enteral tube (...) feeding is a conventional means of providing artificial nutrition and hydration to meet nutritional needs, but its benefits to the frail population are limitedly shown in the clinical evidence. Forgoing tube feeding is ethically challenging when patients are mentally incompetent and in the absence of an advance directive. Unlike some developed countries, like the United States of America, death and dying is a sensitive issue or even a taboo in some cultures in developing countries that forgoing enteral tube feeding is clinically and ethically challenging, such as China and Malaysia. This article in three parts 1) discusses the clinical and ethical issues related to forgoing tube feeding among patients with advanced dementia, 2) describes how Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and Malaysian Islamic cultures respond differently in the decision‐making patterns of forgoing tube feeding for patients with advanced dementia, and 3) reiterates the clinical implications of cultural competence in end‐of‐life care. (shrink)

James A. Diefenbeck, Wayward Reflections on the History ofPhilosophyThomas R. Flynn Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason. Volume 1:Toward an Existential Theory of HistoryMark Golden and Peter Toohey Inventing Ancient Culture:Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient WorldZenonas Norkus Istorika: Istorinis IvadasEverett Zimmerman The Boundaries of Fiction: History and theEighteenth‐Century British Novel.