Familism vs Individualism

Familism Versus Individualism

We have much to learn

Once one of my university teacher talked about a phenomenon that despite a Chinese parent’s high achievements, if his/her child performs poor in study or in other fields, he /she will also be considered unsuccessful. On the contrary, parents in the U.S. don’t think they have much to do with their children’s life when they have become grown-ups.

It reminds me of one of my senior high school teachers. He’s a popular and inspiring physics teacher indeed, with genuine passions towards the Physics and a calm attitude towards problems. He never referred to his son, our fellow student, to us. However, one day, when I accidently heard his son was only admitted into a rather ordinary college after one-year-more study in the high school, I feel a sense of sympathy and shame, as if I have just known something like a skeleton in the cupboard of my respectable teacher. In fact, I’ve subconsciously regarded him an unsuccessful parent.

But when I reflected on it, many questions struck my mind. Is this proves that my physics teacher isn’t a good father? Why the kid should achieve higher just because his/her parents are accomplished? Why my teacher has to bear a burden that he can’t teach his son to be as good as his students? It’s not totally his fault. Maybe there’s no fault. We just can’t tell at present.

Nevertheless, the westerners’ attitude towards this question deserves to be learned. They think their children know what they want, and they will fight for it on their own. They are independent when they leave home.

The difference of these two practices may origin from two different values. The Chinese prefer to attach great importance to the construction of family culture, while people in the U.S. emphasize the advantage of individualism. As Shen Yifei, a professor of Fudan University, pointed out, the United States has a system of family being the basic unit and a culture of individual being the basic unit,...