【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 to gather more money。 religious descendents who wanted to get rid of persecution or settlement moved west to the Mississippi river and beyond, the good business atmosphere and tender climate attracted more people who wanted to try their lucks in the new land. After gaining their independence, Americans grew more powerful and began to venture abroad. Actually, they never stopped the step of conquering and colonizing. The long period of colonization and unceasing adventures for more move land and goods shaped the American’s characteristics of independence, adventure, aggression and progress which caused their thinking patterns to be individualorientated, dynamic and extrospectives.C. Life and Production StylesChina has winds dominated by monsoon. It features clear temperature differences in winter and summer. With 80 percent of the population peasants, and the bination of the yellow river, and Zhujiang Delta Area, China is absolutely a big agricultural country. In contrast to the .population, which are mostly urban, twothirds of the Chinese still live in rural areas, laboring primarily in rice or wheat Chinese agriculture is peasant farming. It is munal, not individualistic。 survival depends on group cooperation and harmony. Loyalty and obedience to familial hierarchy binds laboring groups together. Many of china39。s city dwellers were born and raised in the country and have retained their agrarian values.“Just as most urbane American are influenced by the country39。s cowboy rootsshoot first and ask questions later, lay your cards on the table, and so onmost modern Chinese are affected by millennia of living close to the soil.” 3 Moreover, since most Chinese make a living by agriculture, they prefer to stay in a stable area rather than changing locations continuously or find new ways to make a living. All the above factors contribute to the result that Chinese people stick to grouporientation and they are not quite willing to pete and adventure. Although American only gets seven percent of people who work on farm, it is a big food supplies country. Early in the middle of the nineteenth century, cities and towns were blooming across the east and the Midwest, and people were looking for ways to ease the toil of cultivating and harvesting. Robert Fulton39。s steamboat, first launched in 1807, and the development of eastern railway represented the first intrusions of what leo Marx would call the machine in the garden. With these early stirrings of the industrial age to e, Americans began to make full use of the land around them. Rural towns gleaming with the prosperity brought to them by the machine and technology. Group activity was not particularly critical of their changing relationship to nature, but the advent of technology meant that civilization had gained considerable advantage in the continuing struggle between man and the wilderness. Back to the old days when many European immigrants flew to American to try their luck, they settled down new colonies and brought their life styles to American. Since the European countries developed merce and many Americans would rather try their luck in business rather than in agriculture. That is why American living styles are quite close to merce. Commercial activity means any business, or adventure or concern in the nature of trade carried on by a person. Commerce means profits to individual。 thus, American are more individualorientated and more aggressive.D. PhilosophyThe most prominent attribute of Chinese thinking is generalization, while for American thinking it is analysis.”41. Confucianism and TaoismConfucius had one overwhelming message: If we are to achieve a state of orderliness and peace, we need to return to traditional values of virtue. These values are based entirely on one concept:ren, which is best translated ashumaneness, but can also meanhumanity,goodness,39。 orvirtue. This humaneness is a practicable virtue. Rather, the job of thegentleman, junzi, was to concentrate on the highest concepts of behavior even when this is impractical or foolish. Like his contemporaries, Confucius believed that the human order in some way reflected the divine order, or the patterns of heaven. More than anything, according to Confucius established the Chinese past as an infallible model for the present. This lays foundation for Chinese pastorientation and introspective thinking styles. We can easily find that Chinese philosophy, the oneness of man and natureman39。s harmony with naturedominating perception of any relation between man and nature. This is just the opposite of the subjectobject dichotomy that western philosophy often assumes as the relation between man and the material world. Therefore, Chinese thinking pattern is more apt to take synthetic and relational styles.2. American PhilosophyAmerican philosophy can be traced back to the Greek philosophy, because Greek philosophy formed the basis of all later philosophical speculation in the western world. The ancient Greek emphasizes a nature, mind, science, morals and logic. Many world known philosophers were born in Greek, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates, despite his foundational place in the history of ideas, actually wrote nothing. Most of our knowledge of him es from the words of Plato. Socrates’ method of philophical inquiry consisted in questioning people on the positions they asserted and working them though questions into a contradiction, thus proving to them that their original assertion was wrong. The Socratic elenchus eventually gave rise to dialectic, the idea that truth needs to be pursued by modifying one39。s position through questioning and conflict with opposing ideas. It is an idea of the truth being pursued, rather than discovered, that characterizes Socratic thought and much of our view today. Plato looked at the world and saw nothing but change。 he wondered how we can know anything at all when everything is in motion and change. But Aristotle believed that the world could be under