Culture and communications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Culture and communications - Essay Example People meeting these two Asian groups get confused because their outlook is also remarkably similar to differentiate them (Howe 1996, p. 222). It is necessary to have a look at elements in each of the country as it will give a clear picture of similarities and differences present. This will also help in understanding the differences and similarities between Chinese and Japanese cultural elements. The first similarity evident in the culture of the two Asian countries is on how they do their naming. The culture of the two countries dictates that a person’s first name should be that of the family and the preferred name should be the last. The family name should resemble the community and this simply indicates that these two cultures do not take their interests first but focus on communal interest first. The norm of using family names has also been extended in Chinese and Japanese businesses, and they name their companies after family names. Employees view their businesses as an extended family where people working in their companies are considered as members of the extended family. This is indicated as one reason why Japan is growing at a high rate in its corporations and can withstand the financial crisis that sweeps economies of most world powers (Howe 1996, p. 225). The other similarity is in their language. Japan’s written language is mostly borrowed from Chinese culture. The Japanese did not have a written language, and they only got it when they started interacting with the Chinese. Japan’s written language, referred to as Kanji, is created from characters that originated from the Chinese symbol language. People from the countries who cannot communicate effectively verbally rely on the symbol language for their communication. Japanese students who studied in China impacted the development of the Kanji language in Japan once they returned back. In addition, Japan is credited for coming up with new words, which refer to similar things and