This paper explores the different cultural aspects between Eastern and Western civilization, more specifically Thailand and European South African culture. As a Westerner, people are more logical thinking about careers and being an individualistic, as opposed to Easterners who are more contexts based, acting more for the harmony of the community. (What is the difference between eastern culture and western culture?, 2012) It examines, in more depth, the differences in cultures, religions, beliefs, family values and lifestyles between the Eastern and Western civilizations.
What Is Civilization?
What does it mean when we speak about civilization? The word civilization is based on the Latin civis ‘inhabitant of a city’ which means a nationality, region or even village with a large number of people that has the ability to live together harmoniously in social groupings. (Guisepi)
Nisbett states: “Research has led me to the conviction that two utterly different approaches to the world have maintained themselves for thousands of years. These approaches include profoundly different social relations, views about the nature of the world, and characteristic thought processes.”
As neatly summarized by Wolpoff, …show more content…
(What is the difference between eastern culture and western culture?, 2012) People are known to make contributions as an individual, and driven by completion of task-focused goals. Comparatively, people in general are also known to be more analytical and detailed, where one focuses on problems directly, and creates a solution immediately for the problem encountered. Furthermore, people are more often materialistic in the sense of being owners of cars, houses and having money, which are all very important to a person in the sense of status; people are driven by accomplishing things through science and technology. (Bibikova &