Fan Shen's "The Classroom and the Wider Culture"

Ariel Miller
4/11/10
English 101
Blog Post # 1

Can writing styles or techniques reflect the unity and beauty of someone’s culture? People across the world grow up with different backgrounds, beliefs, and understandings of each other and being brought into new learning environments can be hard to adapt too, as it was for Fan Shen. In Shen’s article called, “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a key to Learning English Composition”, he explains what it was like adjusting from his Chinese culture to the “western” culture, in a writing sense. He describes the western culture as a very step by step process way to write, while using the word ‘I’ often. It comes off as somewhat of a culture shock to him because his culture’s way of writing is much more descriptive, while including the word ‘we’ over ‘I’. When talking about Shen’s past writing experience, he mentions, “The word ‘I’ has always been identified with another “bad” word, “individualism”, which has become a synonym for selfishness in China” (703). China really focuses on their culture as a whole, and it’s considered really disrespectful and immodest to use ‘I’ since that’s a designated term for one person. They believe that ‘we’ means everyone is included, while the western culture focuses strongly and eagerly on ‘I’, trying to promote individualism, and hearing your voice only, not your cultures. Due to China’s beliefs in modesty, and respect for one another could they be a more united culture than America? If America stood behind their cultural morals and values more, maybe they would be more aware and accepting of each another.
In Shen’s first paper he wrote in his college composition class, he received feedback from the professor like, “Why did you always use ‘we’ instead of I?” and “Your paper would be stronger if you eliminated some sentences in the passive voice,” (702). Shen’s professor didn’t understand his background and the hidden connotations that ‘I’ represented for Shen. Although Shen was always taught to write in a way that included the words of everyone, not just himself, he eventually got more comfortable using ‘I’ in his writing, due to the success he wanted to achieve in the western culture. Shen describes two “parts” of himself in his writing; his ‘English self’ and his ‘Chinese self’. He explains that he doesn’t necessarily forget about his Chinese culture, but he compromises with it by saying, “In a sense, creating an English self is a way of reconciling my old cultural values with the new values required by English writing, without losing the former,” (706). Shen is saying that he hasn’t lost touch with his past culture, but that he is reconnecting with it, in an English form that is considered socially acceptable. Through acquiring these western values, (that are viewed so prominently in this culture) Shen makes the statement that, “Being myself, meant not to be my Chinese self at all,” (704). He means that in order to meet these new writing “standards”, he had to fully accept it and believe in its values in order to succeed. However, to Shen this didn’t mean he had to completely diminish his Chinese culture, but that he simply had to embrace new values and expectations, while keeping in sight the beauty of what his own culture had to offer. Is it ideal to ask someone to change their cultural experiences with writing in order to meet a different standard of what’s considered “right” in another culture? Shen’s professor advised him to change his style of writing to better suit America’s, but I wonder if his professor would’ve done this if he had a better understanding of the Chinese beliefs. Shen’s past writing values consisted of displaying art through his words, and giving the reader a visual about what was being described. His culture was expected to give a great amount of detail before entering the main topic; whereas in the western culture, everything stays in a sequence, focusing in on the main point the whole time. Fan Shen was raised in a culture where unity stands above all, everyone is accounted for, and modesty is a virtue. Being thrown into a culture, that openly accepted individualism gave him a new perspective on life and perhaps opened his eyes to more opportunities, including his career as an English professor and effectively translating three books from English to Chinese. Shen’s ability to accept and adapt in a new culture is what acquired him his success and knowledge of new values and understandings of not only writing, but people too, and this new knowledge may be what helps educate other cultures as well.