Defining Chinese Culture

Chinese culture is often assumed to be just that; Chinese. The common view is China is a monoculture. In fact, in China there are many minority ethnic groups that are not Chinese either culturally or ethnically. Even the people who call themselves Chinese are actually from many different groups and each group is related in varying degrees to each other. Looking at the great number of languages and dialects spoken by the people of China provides evidence for this claim.

These differences are not so large as to create unbridgeable differences between ethnicities due to mutually unintelligible spoken languages. In fact, the different ethnic groups that comprise the population of China have had similar historical and cultural influences for thousands of years. Although not every group has been influenced for the same amount of time and the particular influences on each group may have been different at certain points in history, the ethnicities in China have much in common. But when compared with each other they still retain some distinct characteristics of their own. So who exactly are Chinese people and who has Chinese culture?

The very idea of Chinese-ness and Chinese culture is a generalization that should be used with caution. The same caution should be used when making generalizations about Western culture. For instance, the East - West division holds the West as a single culture as well. The basis for this is assumption is often traced back to ancient Greece. The many modern cultures that make up the West call ancient Greece a cultural foundation and indeed do contain many similarities. On the other hand, there are also a lot of dissimilarities. Understanding and acknowledging that any cultural categorization holds many generalizations is important for this thesis and qualifies the idea of Chinese culture.

To determine which ethnic groups fit the Chinese category they first have to be identified and categorized. When people refer to Chinese and Chinese culture, what and who are they talking about? In order to determine who fits this category, identification of ethnicities that are regarded as Chinese is important. Language is an invaluable tool to help group people into ethnic groups. This is because different ethnic groups often evolved their own distinct languages and language an inseparable part of culture. Language can be used to distinguish between different ethnic groups. For this thesis Chinese culture is the common behaviors held by the ethnic groups that use a Chinese language as a mother tongue.

The world’s languages are categorized by families and linked to form something similar to a family tree. Every language can be placed into this language tree which shows the relatedness between languages and the development of languages from previous ones. The languages that comprise a linguistic family are more closely related to each other than languages from different language families.

Since language is an integral part of ethnicity and culture, the relatedness between different ethnic groups can be found by looking at their respective languages. Using this logic the languages used by people can help separate people by ethnic groups and therefore be used to find people who match the chosen definition Chinese culture. The close relationship between language and ethnicity means once knowing the relationships between languages, the relationship between ethnicity can then be inferred as well. This method is supported by studies of genetic variation amongst the Chinese that show grouping according to genetic similarities and differences closely match with the groups made with linguistic data used in this research (Chu et al., 1998; Lin et al., 2001). It is also important to note that historically human populations in the land now considered China had periodic and massive migrations which caused significant genetic transfer between populations and the transference of languages across ethnic boundaries (Chu et al., 1998). Differences are measurable, but once again this shows cultural divisions should be taken as generalizations since the definitions are flexible and rarely one hundred percent clear cut. The definition of Chinese for this research is people who speak Chinese as a mother tongue. What is commonly referred to as spoken Chinese is actually a group of related languages, many of which are mutually unintelligible.

In the world classification of languages the Chinese languages form one of two branches of the Sino-Tibetan language family called the Sinitic branch (Katzner, 2002). The other branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family is the Tibeto-Burman branch which will not be discussed in detail here, but is worth noting speakers of Sinitic languages and Tibeto-Burman are more closely related to each other than they are to ethnicities that speak languages from different families.

Chinese are usually ethnically classified as Han Chinese. Approximately 93% of the population in the People’s Republic of China (est. 1.25 billion) is regarded as Han and speaks a Chinese language (DeFrancis, 1984; Katzner, 2002). However there are linguistic and genetic differences between the north and the south Han populations, which some label as Southern Han and the Northern Han (Chu et al., 1998). Amongst the Southern Han population it is possible to identify further genetic variation that allows further subdivision of the Southern Han group (Lin et al., 2001). The genetic difference in the Southern Han population mostly agrees with the language groups that are found in Southern China and are all Sinitic languages.

Mandarin was selected as the common language and is used by Chinese all over the world and is the official language of the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official designation), Singapore, and one of the United Nations six official languages. The common use of Mandarin across China means this language is like a second mother tongue for many. 75 percent, or nearly 900 million, speak Mandarin as a mother tongue, which is native to the north (Katzner, 2002). The other Sinitic languages are mainly found in Southern China. Katzner summarizes the population and location of the other languages that make up Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family.

1. Wu, spoken by about 80 million people in and around Shanghai.
2. Cantonese, spoken by about 50 million people in the southern provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hong Kong.
3. Min, spoken by about 40 million people in Fujian Province and subdivided into Northern Min and Southern Min. Southern Min is also the principal dialect of Taiwan.
4. Hsiang, spoken by 40 million speakers in Hunan Province
5. Hakka, spoken by 30 million speakers in Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujien, and also on Taiwan

This still means there are about a 100 million people in the PRC that speak languages from the other branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family and other completely different language families. This information allows formation of a more concise definition of Chinese for this thesis. The term Chinese here defines the large population of the world constituted of people who use a Sinitic language as their mother tongue and are likely to be from one of the Han Chinese ethnic groups. Therefore the cultural values held in common by the people composing this group could be said to be the basis for Chinese culture. Chinese have moved to the West and their offspring do not use a Chinese language as mother tongue and therefore do not fit this definition. Again, this is still a generalization, but a useful one that allows engagement in the cultural values discussion taking place in academic business studies.

The shared cultural values of the Han Chinese are diverse and extend beyond purely linguistic and genetic similarities. Historical outlook, educational system, social relationships, religion, and philosophy are some social practices that are similar to all groups of the Han Chinese, along with a common worldview. The broader view the closer the similarities seem. Some of these common features are briefly discussed below to give an idea of the argument.

Historically, the religious and philosophical of views of the Chinese were mainly influenced by Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. The form of Buddhism practiced by the Chinese is Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism entered Western China from Northern India where it was further adapted to existing Taoist and Confucian ideals. More recently, modernity has brought about huge changes in worldview and an accompany diversity of outside influences.

Confucianism is not a religion, but is more like a philosophy; a set of morals to follow. Confucianism was arguably the greatest philosophical influence for the Chinese and remains influential even in contemporary China. Confucianism was also an influential force in the rest of East Asia, in particular Vietnam which was part of the Chinese Empire for about a millennium (Tarling, 1966). In the past this philosophical framework of Confucianism formed the basis of the educational system. Although in modern times Western thoughts concerning education have become dominant, Confucian ideals still have influence (Jin & Dan, 2004). Confucianism places importance on face, harmony and respect for scholars.

In China the culture mainly evolved from within and with interactions with nearby people. Relatively little outside cultural influence was brought in from outside until modern times. This being the case it cannot be emphasized enough how strong modernity has influenced all cultures on earth and creates cultural change. Although much of China remains underdeveloped and therefore more traditional so much has changed that it is difficult to cement past practices as part of continuing and common characteristics of all modern Chinese.