Cultural Difference Between Hong Kong and the U.S.

Cultural Difference between Hong Kong and the U.S.

Hong Kong has been one of the most prosperous cities in the world for many years. The idea of Hong Kong being returned to China was frightening many Hong Kong people in the early 80s, but the handover turned out to be a memorable moment for most of the citizens. Today, Hong Kong is no longer a colony of Britain and Chinese are holding most of the top positions in the government. Not only the political and economic issues have been changed a lot, but also the school system has. Before 1997, most subjects at schools were taught in English. Although it has been hard for students to learn materials with their second language, they have been pushing themselves to move along with it. However, after Hong Kong was returned, many of the secondary schools had been forced by the Chinese government to change almost all the subjects to Chinese. It is true that the contents of the books would be more understandable for the students, but the sad thing was that everything would be changed back to English at universities, which would course a pain for the students.

Also, the studying style in Hong Kong is different from the one in the United States. Most of the people in the U.S. pay more attention to the process while Hong Kong students mostly focus only on the result of the courses. In average, students in Hong Kong usually do not have much work to do between the first day and the final two weeks of a semester, but they will put all their afford on the last couple weeks to study for the exams. It is because the schools do not really pay a lot of attentions to their students on how they look at the courses, as long as the kid can achieve a high score, he or she will be an A student.

It is true that having good scores on exams is what every student should do, since they are sent with money; however, the schools in the U.S. seem to have more genuine- human-warmth than the Asian schools. Many teachers pay attentions to the learners’ thinking skills. The final outcome is somewhat less important than how to go through the task, as we can see there are many A projects but with failing products. Most of the teachers are looking for ideas and affords that the students have spend on. The experience would be more worthwhile to gain.

Therefore, there are more projects and work that needs teamwork in the schools here than the ones in Hong Kong. I came to the U.S. when I was fifteen. The first thing that surprised me very much was the quantity of group-work assignments and presentations.