How Did Confucianism Influence Chinese Culture

1048 Words5 Pages

institution
Chinese culture is extremely various and has a strong historical grounding. It is one of the world’s oldest cultures. However customs and traditions of Chinese people vary greatly from province to province and from one city to another. In general, a society has a strict hierarchy, which places aged people and people with authorities above the youth as well as men above women.
China is a communist state, therefore it is officially considered atheist. As a result 59% of people tend to have no official religious affiliation, while 20% are up to traditional religions, like Confucianism and Taoism. Hence Confucianism is the most widespread and powerful religion in China.
Confucianism is a religion, developed by Chinese philosopher Confucius. …show more content…

Therefore it is understandable that Chinese culture devotes a lot of attention to the esteem of authorities and aged people.
In common words, Confucianism is controversial to Western culture, where everyone posesses equal opportunities within society. In China people have equal opportunities within their social rank only. Being widespread, Confucianism greatly influences Chinese culture and hence modern life even today.
Despite the fact that today modern China has overstepped these strictly limited roles, the Chinese are still thinking in terms of hierarchy. Even in the 21th century they do respect hierarchy, doing this to the much greater extent than Westerns do. The differences in statuses of people are respected the same. For example, in Western culture we usually treat people regardless their socio-economic statuses. This is the case when the CEO of a corporation greets his/her employees by their first names and chats with a janitor every morning. It is almost impossible in China, where people value and respect social statuses to the huge