How Chinese and Americans See Culture

One night in Kunming, China last December I was out to dinner with a former professor, a middle-aged Chinese woman. She had just returned from a trip to Washington D.C. and at one point during the meal we began contrasting America and China on a number of different fronts: infrastructure, geography, weather, fashion. When I brought up the differences between Chinese and American culture she interjected, “What American culture?” The U.S. is too young a country to have a culture, she began arguing. In her mind, real culture was something that could only exist after thousands of years of civilization. Besides, she argued, American culture is merely a collection of snippets from other cultures. It is not a true culture. This was not the first time I’d heard such criteria for culture from a Chinese friend. What does this perspective, if anything, say about how the Chinese generally view culture as a concept and how that might differ from the American viewpoint?