从龙与狗看中西方文化差异

中西方文化的差异的解读：

以龙与狗为例

Abstract

Now it is a period of rapid development of China, and understanding the differences between Chinese and Western cultures will certainly contribute to the promotion of our country’s comprehensiv e national power. The more we communicate with the western countries, the more cultural conflicts there will be. It is very necessary for us to avoid such cultural confrontations. Dragons and dogs are very typical examples of such cultural confrontations. For instance, we Chinese call ourselves “decedents of dragons” and are proud of that, while the image of dragons makes us evil in westerners’ eyes. If Westerner call a Chinese “a lucky dog” which means the Chinese is really fortunate, the Chinese may think the westerner is belittling him.

Therefore ，we can see that the image of dragons is universal and usual both in Chinese and Western cultures. However, because of the different cultural backgrounds, dragons are given different symbolic meanings relatively. Chinese dragons tend to be “powerful, influential and lucky”, while people in the West think the dragons are nothing but a prominent “evil”. The symbol of the dragons is full of negative meaning in the Western culture. Similarly, dog culture is also a typical cultural conflict between China and the Western countries. Chinese people think dogs bear low status without anyone caring about them, but in the West, the dogs represent loyalty and

hard work, and they regard dogs as their faithful companions. As a result, dogs are also important members of the families in the West.

In this paper, We talk about dragons and dogs with a view to the cultural differences between China and the West from three aspects: first, from the differences from history, making it sure how the differences come out; second, from the differences from social status, perceiving deeply about their relative images and knowing how they are treated by human beings; finally, from the lexical differences, finding the answer how the differences reflect in language. We hope that we can decrease the misunderstandings we usually have in communication with foreigners, increase the inter understanding, and improve our knowledge about western cultures. Only if we reduce the misunderstandings in the intercultural communication, mutual understandings are to be made.

Key words: dragons ；dogs ；Chinese and western culture;

摘要

现在我国正处在飞速发展的时期，了解中西文化的差异肯定是有助于我国综合国力的提升，随着中西交往的增多, 文化的碰触也越多。避免这种交流误解就尤为必要，其中龙与狗就是典型的文化冲突代表。例如，我们中国人自称“龙的传人”并以此骄傲不已，然而“龙”却让西方人认为我们很邪恶；如果西方人称呼一个中国人“a lucky dog ”，而这个表达确实是说一个人非常幸运，但中国人就会认为西方人在贬低他。

因此，我们可以看出龙的意象在中英文语言中确实非常的频繁与常见。然而，由于不同的语言文化背景，龙的意象分别被给予了不同的象征意义。中国的龙更倾向于含有“权利”“力量”“吉祥”等意思，而西方人眼中的龙却更突出其“邪恶”的象征，西方的龙更充满了消极的意味。同样的是，狗文化也是中英文化差异冲突的一个典型的代表。在中国，狗没有任何社会地位可言，而且也没有人来关爱他们；但是在西方，狗代表忠诚与辛劳的含义，他们认为狗是一种很有灵性的物种，在西方的家庭中狗也是重要的成员之一。

在这篇文章里，我们主要从三方面去谈论了解中西方龙与狗在文化上的差异：首先，从历史的角度，让人们了解这种差异从何而来；其次，从社会地位的角度，更加深入的感知龙与狗的文化差异，了解人们是怎样分别的对待他们的。最后，从词汇差异来讨论，力求找到文化差异体现在语言上的方面。我们希望通过此次对龙与狗的研究，我们能减少与西方人士交流的错误，增进相互的了解，也希望

能在潜移默化之中不断增加英语文化知识。我们只有在中西方跨文化交流中减少误解，才能建立中西方的相互了解。

关键词：龙；狗；中西方文化；

Table of Contents

Abstract . ........................................................................................................................ I 摘要 ............................................................................................................................ III

Ⅰ. Introduction . ........................................................................................................... 1

Ⅱ. The Differences from History ............................................................................... 2

2.1 The History of Dragons .................................................................................. 2

2.2 The History of Dogs . ....................................................................................... 3

Ⅲ. The Differences from Social Status . ...................................................................... 5

3.1 Social status of Dragons.................................................................................. 5

3.2 Social Status of Dogs ...................................................................................... 6

Ⅳ. Lexical Differences . ................................................................................................ 9

4.1 Lexical Differences about Dragons ................................................................ 9

4.2 Lexical Differences about Dogs . ................................................................... 10

Ⅴ.Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 12 Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Ⅰ. Introduction

There are about more than 1.5 million species of animals living in nature. And such rich animal resources are the precious material treasures to human beings. With the development of human society and evolution of nature, human beings and animals have established closer relationships between each other. However, because of cultural differences, images of different animals are dramatically different in the eyes of humans in the east or west. For instance, “Dragons ” and “dogs ” are the most typical representatives, and they are two converse examples to show eastern and western cultural differences. Why? Because Chinese people regard themselves as “descendants of the dragons” and are proud of that .They believe dragons live in the oceans, marshes or some big lakes. Dragons can operate the rain and the wind, even some big storms ，or in other words, they can do everything they want. As the descendants of the dragons, we Chinese people should be powerful and strong, too. However ，westerners believe that dragons are evil creatures, because they are the resource of evil and violent; Similarly，Chinese people believe that the dog is a lower headed species which only know how to flatter others while westerners treat the dog a loyal companion .In some western places, one will broke the law and will be put into prison if he mistreat a dog .

Why “dragons ” and “dogs ” differ so much in Chinese and Western culture? The difference should be discussed from three aspects: first, from the perspective of history; second, from the perspective of social status; finally, from the lexical differences. Only in this can we find out the implicit reasons why people in the east and the west often communicate incorrectly, and the reasons why they often raise misunderstandings.

Now China is a developing country and we need to establish a good relationship with other foreign countries, especially the western countries to improve our economy and enhance our comprehensive national strength. Thus, such researching topic is very practical and essential.

Ⅱ. The Differences from History

2.1 The History of Dragons

Dragons are very special and honorable in China. They are a typical spiritual symbol of Chinese people, representing sanctity, authority, and good luck. But how do dragons come into being? Different people hold different views on this matter. Some people believe that dragons are the “Totem” of the oldest tribes which live along the Yellow River .Or dragons are the combined “Totem” in the result of tribe combination. However, some believe that the prototype of dragons come from some animals, such as snakes, crocodiles, fish, and other animals. Still there are some people believing that dragons are derived from agricultural culture. They are an integrated reflection of some animals---birds, beasts, insects, fish which reveal the season changes. Being influenced by long-range culture, dragons have come into what they look like and represent of. No matter what dragons come from, they are the outcome of the human worship and group spirit. All the time, dragons are specially and creatively designed, combining with many animals’ organs, and each organ has it unique significance (It has wide forehead, symbolizing intelligence; it has buckhorn, symbolizing long life span; it has cow ears, symbolizing that people will win first prize in contest; it has tiger eyes, symbolizing authority and social status; it has eagle claws, symbolizing courage; it has horse teeth, symbolizing its kindness and hardworking; it has fish tails, symbolizing flexibility)(Lin, 2002).All these significances are good and beneficial to human beings. Although dragons are not dignified, sacred, auspicious or beautiful only judging from its looking, it has invincible power to retreat evil strength in Chinese culture.

However, the image of the Dragons in the West has the opposite meaning. They are a kind of creature who looks like lizards, having large body, long wings, a long tail, and eagle-like claws. They are pretty fierce, usually hurting people by breathing out fire. In all the mythologies in the west, dragons are evil creatures. For instance, the first dragon recorded in the ancient Kingdom of Babylon history appeared from more than 4,000 years ago. It is said that the formation of sky and earth should owed to

dragons. According to the mythologies of the ancient Babylon, there was a ferocious female dragon named Tai Man living and traveling alone in the chaotic world, early before the order world was formed. At that time everything was in a mess. It seemed that everyone was afraid of the female dragon, and even gods of Babylon had to be reasonable when met her. Once, Tai Man was in a quite rage and she killed all the people who went to challenge her. Only the Babylonian Sun God Marduk survived. After a fierce big fight between them, Marduk finally put Tai Man into death, dismembering the body of the Dragon, and then separated the sky and the earth. Then Marduk sprinkled the dragon blood and soon human beings were created to the ground. Hundreds of years later, when authors of the Hebrew Bible described the image of evil strength, almost all of them used the legend of ferocious Tai Man(Ji, 2002). And this may be the reason why the definition of dragons in the English-Chinese dictionary is: “dragon: a mythical monster like a giant reptile. In European tradition the dragon is typically fire-breathing and tends to symbolize chaos and evil.” There is another western legend talking about dragons. It says that the God created a dragon named Leviathan on the fifth day after the formation of the world in the Old Testament. On the last judging day, the God used his powerful sword to punish Leviathan, killing it in the sea (Ji, 2002). As far as we can concern that dragons are referring to the monsters in the eyes of the westerners’. In their world, dragon is a creature with an obvious derogation.

2.2 The History of Dogs

So what is the role of dogs in western and eastern history? During the ancient Chinese agricultural history, the usage of dogs was relatively small. In addition to keeping household, dogs could only be used for providing meat. During the early feudal society, ancient China had rigid caste system in which emperors could kill cattle, sheep, pigs and scholar-bureaucrat could kill pigs when they were worshiping their forbears, while the civilians could kill nothing other than chickens and dogs; Therefore, it is why in history Fan Kuai was only a butcher who made a living by dog meat trade before he worked for Liu Bang; Monk Ji Gong went out to steal meat,

which mostly was dog meat. We can infer that dog meat was the main meat recourse of the common people at that time. Because of this, the habit of eating dog meat continues to nowadays. This is an obvious culture confrontation between the east and the west.

In Chinese history, dogs are not treated well while it is never true in the west although western civilization is much shorter than Chinese civilization. Unlike the culture of China, western culture is more chaotic and gibberish. In the early European civilization, people mainly fed themselves by fishing and hunting. Under this background, cattle and sheep could provide enough meat for people’s daily life and dogs became an important labor worker, playing a necessary role. People like dogs and they breed, raise and train many kinds of dogs such as Hound, Collie and so on. Obviously, dogs have become a part in people’s life and people start to treat dogs as families. In western countries such as England and the US, it is quite common to see young couples walking their beloved dogs in the community, or in the street. They take great care of their dogs as if they are their own kids. Even it is common for some young couple to call their dog “son ” or “daughter ” rather than to raise a real child.

From the perspective of history, we can see that Chinese people regard themselves as “descendants of the Dragons while westerners believe that dragons are evil creatures; Chinese people believe that a dog is a lower headed species while westerners treat a dog a loyal companion.

Ⅲ. The Differences from Social Status

3.1 Social status of Dragons

Just now we talked about the eastern and western culture differences from dragons and dogs in historical perspective, but how about social status? How culture differs in the east and west from the social status?

Firstly, we should know that dragons are the symbol of the emperors in China. It was widely believed that one will be more adorable, valued, and honorable when he had some relationship with dragons. To some extent, our Chinese history is dragons’ history, because we call ourselves the “descendants of the dragons ”. Always, Chinese people respect the dragons for dragons are a symbol of the spirit, and they think dragons are inviolable, having unimaginable power and standing for authority. In fact in feudal society, ruling class took an advantage of dragons to improve social stability and to enhance economic development. For instance, since the beginning of Xi Han dynasty, “Dragons ”, totems of the tribes had already been used to symbolize the emperor. Since then, the emperor called themselves as "the dragons", therefore “dragons ” are starting to symbolize the status and power of the ruling class. For example, “龙颜” refers to the emperor’s physical appearance. If an emperor is angry with something, that is called “龙颜大怒”; “龙飞” refers to an emperor ascends the throne; “龙髯” means an emperor departs the world. Emperors ’ wearing clothes which are usually embroidered with dragons’ image are commonly known as the “龙袍”（Liu ，2007）. For many centuries, China has called herself “Dragon of the East”. Similarly, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Hong Kong, are reckoned “Four Asian Dragons” by other countries in terms of their rapidly increasing economy. At the same time, old Chinese people believe that there are dragons managing rain under the water, and they can control the rain falling. As a result, if there’s no enough rain during some days, people will host some activities to amuse the “dragons ” so they would make a rain fall. So people have dragon dances or dragon boat races. “On the one hand, people will believe that dragons can see their sincerity, and it’ll rain very soon ”(Luo,1990[1]). On the other hand, Chinese people can entertain themselves,

exercise their body, make some friends, and have a harmonious relationship with the Mother Nature in return.

In the myths and legends of the West, we can also tell that the social status of

dragons is really low, which can be perceived out from the literature works. The word “dragon ” derives from ancient Greek word “drakon ”, and it means “to see, to look at (看，看守)”. It is said that dragons are monsters which guard the precious treasures, and they has long wings, looking like the crocodile. People are afraid of them because they are cruel, and they like attacking people by putting out flames. Although dragons have huge bodies, their tails just look like snakes’ tails, short and small. In the middle age, the word “dragon ” was the synonym of evil and crime. The source of the idea comes from the Bible: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world [2]”I n the text “the great dragon” and “the old Serpent” refers to the devil, Satan. In addition, the Bible also mentions that dragons should be stepped under people ’s feet. From this, we can know how low the dragons’ social status is! Because dragons are evil, aggressive, brutal, furious, and horrible monster! As time goes on, people use the word, dragon, to describe the violent people, especially vicious women. For instance, the woman in charge of the account department is an absolute Dragon! (负责财务部的那个女人简直就是狠毒之极!) ；I will starve him to death , the son of a dragon. (我要饿死他，这个恶魔的儿子 ) (Yu，2000）.Obviously, dragon is a derogatory term in Western culture. So if we call the 2000 “the year of the drago n”, it is very difficult for westerners to understand us.

3.2 Social Status of Dogs

What about dogs? Do dogs bear the same social status both in the west and in

the east? The answer is absolutely no! Chinese history is a history about agriculture, and people didn ’t use dogs to guard their animals moving about in pastures as westerners did. During the entire Chinese history, the function of dogs was mainly for watching houses and providing meat. So in China there is some old sayings as “看门狗”, and “挂羊头卖狗肉”. Their social status was so low that people could kill them

for food at anytime. Almost all over the Asia, one could just beat his dog whether it had done something bad, or even he could just beat the dog when he was in a bad mood. However, the social status of dogs has been improved these years because of the western culture’s influence. Nowadays, more and more people treat their dogs as pets, or their families (especially the old). They feed them, raise them, and take great care of them. But thousands of years’ culture is more influential, there are still a large number of dogs who are treated badly. When the number of dogs in some place is too large and becomes a trouble, the local government probably will annihilate some dogs. Do the dogs deserve that? No!

Because of the unique cultural background, dogs are much more important in

Western countries. We can get the reason from the bottom of the western culture: the west is the heaven of the young, while it is the hell of the old, because there are a lot of opportunities for the young to prove themselves and achieve their dreams. However, the old are just in their worst years, for they are weak and slow in thoughts, having no ability to improve themselves. If a young man doesn’t earn enough money when he is young, he’ll probably have a very dreary life when he is old. Moreover, westerners’ family relationship is not as good as our Chinese’. The relationship is of indifference, alienation, and strange feeling. Children rarely give good return to their parents, nor do they have enough time to visit them. As a result, older people feel not only alone but also lonely. Dogs, as their honest companies, relieve their loneliness and become their spiritual pillar naturally. They can talk to the dogs, walk with the dogs, and play with the dogs. In the West, there are unaccompanied old people everywhere, but there is no one dog can be seen anywhere without anyone taking care of. Also it is very common in western countries that the old will leave a large fortune to their dogs rather than leave any penny to their children after they depart the world in their last will. Even some old will also die to be together with their old dogs several days later after the dogs’ death. Due to the different cultural background, we can see quantities of dog beauty salons, dog hospitals, and dog beauty contests everywhere. Here, dog cemetery is also worthy of mention, as there is a very big monument which buries seven dogs reading: “Always love you, our love is always around you. Mom and their

D ad ”(O’Neill ，2012). There is also a monument writing an epitaph: “You belong to us, and you go, but you will always be together with us, we will always miss you!” (O’Neill ，2012). From these above, we can infer that dogs have a very high social status in the west. And the cause is the unique culture of the west.

Ⅳ. Lexical Differences

4.1 Lexical Differences about Dragons

The difference of dragons and dogs not only lies in historical perspective and

social status, but also lies in words. Words are the most distinctive feather of culture. So we can find some clue in it. Below are some of the findings.

In eastern world, dragons are a beneficent symbol of fertility, associating with

water and heavens. People usually regard dragons as divinities. Different parts of dragons have different meaning, for example: It has wide forehead, symbolizing intelligence and so on. And this marvelous meaning of dragons also reflects on the words which usually bears good and lucky meanings, such as“龙腾虎跃”、“龙飞凤舞”、“生龙活虎”、“龙吟虎啸”、“龙马精神” and so on. In addition, words about dragons almost cover all the aspects of people ’s daily life, mainly including indispensable appliance, food, architecture, painting, custom，military, festival, belief and so on. In indispensable appliance, it includes“ 水龙头”、“龙灯” and so no; in food, it includes“龙须面”、“龙须菜”、“龙凤饼”、“龙虾”、“龙眼”and so on; in architecture, it includes“龙门吊”，“二龙戏珠”、“龙骨”等；in Kong Fu, it includes“飞龙在天”、“降龙有悔”、“神龙摆尾”、“猛龙过江”and so on; in writing , it includes “龙飞凤舞”、“笔走游龙“、”画龙点睛“ and so on; in custom, “dragons ” represent males and their traits of firmness and persistence. Moreover, it stands for luck, usually showing up with “Feng ”. “龙凤呈祥”means a couple love each other very much and have a harmony life with each other. From this, we can infer whatever word connected with dragons will be words with mystery, divinity, luck and honor.

Because of the Old Serpent in the Old Testament, dragons in western culture

don ’t have a good meaning, instead, they mostly have derogatory sense. In middle century, dragons were the origin of devil, and the evil Satan in the Bible story was thought as the “the great dragon ”. In addition, dragons also have the meaning of “fierce women and shrew”. For example: Her mother is a real dragon. It means“她的妈妈把她管的够严的。”The slang, “chase the dragon ” means you feed yourself heroin (especially by the way of injection) (Du, 2004). Why? I think it is because

heroin is a kind of dangerous drug and dragon is a kind of dangerous monster. . There is another idiom about dragons in English, “sow dragon teeth” (Du, 2004). It comes from a story in old Greek. The idiom roots from the Greek Legend: After Phoenician Prince, named Cadmus, killed a cut-throat dragon; he buried the dragon teeth into the earth. Later, five ferocious and tough knights emerged from the earth and started fighting with each other. The fight was so bloody and they fratricide each other until only five knights were left. Because of Cadmus burying the dragon teeth and therefore caused bloody fight, people use “sow dragon teeth” to show the meaning “挑起纷争，播下不和的东西。”

4.2 Lexical Differences about Dogs

What about dogs ’ idioms? How do they feedback the culture differences

between the east and the west? On the one hand, in eastern world, words associated with dogs don’t have good meaning though dogs have great uses in people’s daily life. People use their imagination and creativity , trying best to show their averseness, such as “狗拿耗子，多管闲事”（it means someone who cares others’ business），“好狗不挡道”（it refers to someone who deliberately get in the way of others），“狗仗人势”(it refers to someone who quell others because he has a relationship with a man with weight ) ，“狗咬吕洞宾，不识好人心”(it means someone shows his misunderstandings after other people help him)，“狼心狗肺”(it means someone who is very heartless and ungrateful). On the other hand, words have flexibility. Words about dogs in China are not always bad. For example, “儿不嫌母丑，狗不嫌家贫”（it means that a son never thinks his mother ugly, and a dog never shuns it owner’s home however shabby it is.）. Moreover, in rural area in China, people still name their children “狗剩”、“狗蛋”and so on in order that their children’s life will be like dogs’, tough, hardworking, healthy and safe.

What about words about dogs in the west? It can be divided into two parts as

well. On the one hand, it is very common situation to refer a man to a dog. There, “Dog ” just means “guy ” and it doesn ’t have derogatory meaning. For instance, “ a lucky dog”(幸运儿), “big dog（’保镖）, “love me, love my dog”（爱屋及乌）, “to help

a lame dog over a stile”（助人于危难之中）, “ Every dog has its day”（凡人皆有得意日）, “An old dog barks not in vain”（老狗不乱吠）, “A good dog deservers a good bone ”（好狗让得好骨头）. On the other hand, English-speaking people don’t always praise dogs. There are also a large number of words with derogatory meaning. For instance, “You, dog!”(你这狗东西！), “That dog!”（那个狗东西）, “Son of a bitch.”（狗娘养的）, “lead a dog’s life”（过着令人烦扰的生活）, “let sleeping dogs lie”（不要惹是生非）, “dog in the manager”(站着茅坑不拉屎的人) ，“Hungry dog will eat dirty pudding”（饥不择食）(Du, 2004).

Ⅴ.Conclusion

Dragons and dogs are very interesting and typical images about culture

difference between China and the West. From the title of this paper, we can avoid making misunderstandings after studying their culture differences. It is no doubt that people without culture difference awareness will make mistakes thus the topic is very important and practical. From the above mentioned, we can learn that Dragons are very special and honorable creature in China. It is a typical spiritual symbol of Chinese people, representing sanctity, authority, and good luck. While dragons in the west are evil creature, who looks like lizards, having large body, long wings, a long tail, and eagle-like claws. They are pretty fierce, usually hurting people by breathing out fire.

However, dogs have the opposite situation. The usage of dogs is relatively small

in China. In addition to keep household, dogs can only be used for providing meat. While, dogs are much more important in Western countries, because western people treasure dogs’ traits-----faith and loyalty and so on. Like the flowers in garden having different colors, we should firstly admit the fact, and then respect the fact. It means that we shouldn ’t laugh at other countries ’ unique culture, and we must respect the world ’s diversification, not judging others ’ cultures by prejudice. No matter how dragons and dogs reflect differently, we must try to understand and respect it.

Our country now is under increasing development, learning about the essences

of culture difference between the east and the west does benefit our Chinese people, and we can improve our country ’s international status. Moreover, with the development of our country, we will communicate more with foreign countries, in this way by learning the typical difference we will know how to avoid misunderstandings.

Notes:

[1] In the “罗二虎，龙与中国文化” the writer hold the opinion that dragon is an great animal in Chinese fairytale. It lives in the oceans, proteomics or some big lakes. It can operate the rain and the wind, even some big storms. It is gold on it's body, it

has eagle's paws, fish's scales, horse's head and deer's horned. Chinese people think dragon is their forefather, and they respect dragon very much. In China, dragons stand for all the good things. Chinese people love dragons very much.

[2]In the Bible talking about dragons, it is recorded that“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world ”

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