Fan Shen And China Summary

As Americans, we are supposed to be willing to widely and attentively consider other cultures traditions, practices, and styles of life. I personally don’t presume in this line from the American anthem “the land of the free and the home of the brave. A substantial amount of Americans’ are chauvinist’s, or just simply don’t take other cultures into consideration. This is why Fan Shen chooses to be his Chinese cultured, self while writing in America. There are many differences in American and Chinese writing. For example the word “I” has often been identified as a “bad” word; the word is extremely discouraged and is also known as a synonym for selfishness in Chinese writing. (Fan 61). Writing is supposed to be an active use of expression. Meanwhile in China it isn’t. America regularly focuses on individualism while china is focused on being a collective group. A collective group is a group of people with similarities, interests, or tasks done by a group of people and involving all members of that group.

It worked, but only to a certain extent. After a while he became more comfortable with only “the shadow of himself.” He felt more at ease to put down his thoughts without looking over his shoulder to worry about the reactions of his teachers. He felt he should write with creativeness, organization, power, and make not only complete but also valid points expressing his opinions within his essay. Materialistic goods aren’t important to Shen. He believes in idealism over materialism and says the materialistic world does not exist in his mind. The more important value is having an individual human mind and to be yourself. At the end of his essay he primarily focused on idealism and being himself but, still taking in insights about American writing from his teachers. Overall he becomes his essay. (Fan