摘 要

李安是国际影坛上具有很高声望的华人导演。《推手》作为李安的处女作,也是成名作，是反映中西方文化冲突电影的三部曲之一。这部作品以一个中美家庭为背景，向观众展示了中西方文化的冲突，碰撞与融合。中国集体主义和西方个人主义是两种文化中完全不同的价值观念，从而导致两国的社会制度，道德信仰，文学艺术，思维方式以及生活方式等各方面的差异。

本文从集体主义和个人主义的角度分析了电影《推手》中的文化差异并追溯其根源。以电影中的不同场景为例，从生活方式，教育方式，传宗接代和赡养老人四个方面，对中国集体主义与美国个人主义进行对比分析，最终发现两国文化差异的形成正是由于两国人民受到不同价值观念的影响。希望通过《推手》中中西方价值观念差异的研究能够为促进跨文化交际提供一些启示: 多一些沟通，多一些包容，少一些误解，少一些冲突。

关键词：《推手》 文化差异 集体主义 个人主义

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

Ang Lee (1954- ) was born in Taiwan; he is a film director, screenwriter and producer. When he was young, he didn’t have any interest in reading. He just wanted to be a director. After failing twice in the college entrance examination, he prepared the specialist examination, and became a theater major in National Taiwan Arts (now National Taiwan University of Arts), which had changed Ang Lee’s life. In 1990, Lee completed the script of Pushing Hands and won the Taiwan government outstanding drama award. He not only won $ 400,000 prize with this script, but also got the chance to direct the film for the first time. Lee’s contribution to the film is that he offsets Eastern and Western cultural barriers successfully and has achieved international recognition. Ang Lee has made a great contribution to Chinese film industry, and also set up a bridge of communication between eastern and western culture.

Pushing Hands was the maiden work of Ang Lee. It tells a series of stories about an immigrant American family which represents a conflict between traditional Chinese culture and American customs. Alex Chu settled in the United States and married a foreign woman, Martha. They had a child, Jeremy Chu. In order to make Chinese filial piety, Alex Chu took his father Mr. Chu from the mainland to the United States to lead a happy elderly life. Mr. Chu was the head coach of Beijing shadowboxing. When he lived with this family, he had a contradiction with Martha and went out to work in a restaurant. But Mr. Chu hurt the boss of the restaurant and was caught in the police station because the boss discriminated against the Communist Party of China. In this accidental circumstance, Mr. Chu became famous in the United States for his extraordinary shadowboxing. When Alex Chu took his father back home from the police office, Martha also had a feeling of guilty. But Mr. Chu returned to his own simple residence instead to spend his lonely old age. This film was awarded for the best actor in 1991 Taiwan Golden Horse Award, best actress and best director award for

special award of jury. In 1992, it was also the best film in the Asia Pacific Film Festival Award.

Culture is the product of society. China and the West differ in their mode of thinking and values because of the different cultures and social contexts. Movie is one of the special methods of cultural performance. It graphically reveals the conflict and collision between eastern and the western cultures. China and America are the typical examples of the two cultures. With the enhancement of China’s comprehensive national strength, the diplomatic relations between the United States and China are getting closer and closer. The cultural exchange between China and America reflects the main theme of the cultural communication between the East and the West. The movie puts cultural exchanges and conflicts into a Sino-American family, and makes a deep comparative analysis on them from family, education, food, medical treatment and so on. The study of the differences between Chinese and Western culture is conducive to people for their cross-cultural communication in their daily life. It helps people avoid the misunderstanding caused by lack of the knowledge of cultural differences.

1.2 Need for the study

Individualism and collectivism are one of the important factors to understand Eastern and Western cultures. They can reveal differences between the two cultures. Actually, they will affect the social interaction and communication. People’s communication mode, lifestyle and behavior are different. So the lack of awareness and understanding of cultural differences will cause the cultural conflict.

This study is based on a family with Chinese and American. Through the contrast of their attitudes towards life, the author will analyze the differences between Chinese collectivism and American individualism. A deep understanding of individualism and collectivism helps people to calculate their behavior in different cultural contexts and allows people to adjust themselves in cross-cultural communication. With the development of globalization, China and the United States have more and more exchanges and cooperation in the fields of culture, economy and politics. The important thing for China and America is to promote mutual understanding through contact and dialogues so as to reduce disagreements and expand common ground. Therefore, it is necessary to realize the influence of collectivism and individualism on cultural differences. It leads to better understanding of us and others. It helps us become more tolerant and less defensive, enjoy cultural differences.

Through the comparative study of American individualism and Chinese collectivism, the author hopes that cultural exchanges between America and China can provide invaluable opportunities for Chinese and American cultures to get enriched by absorbing each other’s positive elements, and sincerely hopes that China and America may increase cultural communication and cooperation, enhance cultural awareness, and the two peoples may walk hand in hand into a bright future.

1.3 Layout of the thesis

The present thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One gives an introduction of the study, including the research background, the need for the study and the layout of the thesis. Chapter Two reviews collectivism and individualism, including the definition of them. Then it gives a simple introduction about previous studies on Pushing Hands and the two values. Chapter Three is the most important part of this thesis. The analysis of these cultural differences in the film will be conducted from the collectivism and individualism perspective. Chapter Four will draw conclusions and present implications of the study.

2. Literature Review

The definition and significance of individualism and collectivism will be simply explained in this chapter. Then the previous studies on Pushing Hands and individualism and collectivism will be analyzed respectively.

2.1 Individualism and Collectivism

Individualism and Collectivism are two completely opposite values. Individualism refers to the value of a culture that personal interests is over group interests, personal rights over group rights and personal needs over group needs (Lv Bing 127). It advocates independence, self-realization, personal autonomy and privacy (Darwish and Huber 48). People who believe in individualism only pay close attention to themselves and their immediate family members. The western countries are basically representatives of individualism such as the United States, French, and Italy.

Individualism is a moral, political, and social philosophy, it argues that individual interests should be the most important factor in behaviors, and emphasizes individual freedom, the importance of individual rights and the virtue of self-independence. But this doesn’t mean that individualism is equal to egoism. The definition of individualism in the Concise Encyclopedia Britannica is as follows: A political and social philosophy, attaches great importance to personal freedom, emphasizes the self-control, individual or self without external constraints...As a kind of philosophy, individualism contains a value system, a theory of human nature, a general attitude for a certain political, economic, social and religious behavior.According to these definitions, individualism can be summarized to six connotations. First, the independent individual is the source or foundation of society. Second, the individual is the ultimate value of society, which means that human is the end. Third, the boundaries among individual, others and society are clear. Forth, everyone is equal. Fifth, everybody should be responsible for their behaviors. Sixth, people have self-discipline, self-organization and the obedience

to abstract public authority. Individualism is advocated in many western countries. In the process of Western civilization, individualism has the integrity and universal significance as a way of life, world outlook and outlook on life. It constitutes the basic way and the existing state of the relationship between human and the world. Specifically, penetration of individualism in all aspects of social life in the west can be roughly summarized as the reflection in the philosophy of humanism, political democracy, economic liberalism and cultural requirements of personality independent consciousness and so on.

In contrast, collectivism refers to the value of a culture that attaching importance to national and collective interests, group rights over personal rights and group needs over personal needs (Lv Bing 127). It emphasizes the dependence on groups and organizations, social responsibility and group harmony (Darwish and Huber 49). Collectivism, represented by China, focuses on the harmonious relationship of mutual cooperation and interdependence.

Collectivism was explicitly presented by Stalin in July 1934 when he had the conversation with the British writer Wells. He said, “Collectivism and socialism does not deny personal interests, but to combine personal interests with collective interests...” Collectivism is one of the contents of the proletarian world outlook, which is the principle of adjusting individual interests and collective interests. It is the core of communist morality and the important symbol of socialist spiritual civilization. It is the opposite of bourgeois individualism, and is the essential characteristic of communist morality which is different from all the old morals.

China is a socialist country led by the proletariat. It has advocated collectivism since ancient times. The establishment of the socialist system in China provides the conditions for the realization of the principle of collectivism. Collectivism in China is a kind of thinking which advocates that individuals belong to the society and individual interests should obey the interests of the group, the nation, the class and the state. Collectivism holds that the individual is the part of the society, and when the individual interest conflict with the collective interests, the individual should subordinate his or her own interest to that of the collective. All action and speech of individual are less important than collective.