【推荐1】Chinese culture values family bonds （纽带）very much. Family members don't just gather during the holidays. In fact, they often live under one roof all year round.

    1    Family in the East and West are very different from each other.

In most East Asian cultures, extended families（大家庭）are common.     2    According to a survey, 90 percent of children in Shanghai and 70 percent of children in Beijing were cared for by their grandparents. Chinese people believe that “ a grandparent is a treasure to their family”.

In many Western countries, most families are nuclear families （小家庭）.These are made up of children and their parents.

Besides, the duties parents have toward their children can also be different.

    3    It's normal for parents to pay for their children's college, help them find a job, or buy them an apartment. Chinese adults also consider their parents' opinions when making major life decisions.

In most Western countries, however, kids usually move out of the house after they turn eighteen.     4    If they choose to keep living with their parents after becoming an adult, it can be seen as a failure on their part.

While the East cares more about close family bonds, the West values privacy （隐私）and independence.     5    Families will always be a source of love, warmth, and care for people around the world.

【推荐2】The way we do things round here

Some years ago, I was hired by an American bank. I received a letter from the head of the Personnel Department that started, “Dear John, I am quite pleased that you have decided to join us.” That “quite” saddened me. I thought he was saying “we’re kind of pleased you decided to join us although I wish we had hired someone else.” Then I discovered that in American English “quite” sometimes means “very”, while in British English it means “fairly”.

So the first lesson about working in other countries is to learn the language and by that I don’t just mean the words people speak. It is the body language, dress, manners, ideas and so on. The way people do things highlights many of the differences we see between cultures.

Some of these differences may be only on the surface—dress, food and hours of work—while others may be deeper and take longer to deal with. Mostly, it is just a question of getting used to the differences and accepting them, like the climate, while getting on with business.

Some of the differences may be an improvement. People are more polite; the service is better; you ask for something to be done and it happens without having to ask again. However, other differences can be troubling, like punctuality(准时). If you invite people to a party at 7 o'clock, your guests will consider it polite to turn up exactly on time in Germany, five minutes early in the American Midwest, an hour early in Japan, 15 minutes afterwards in the UK, up to   an hour afterwards in Italy and some time in the evening in Greece. I prefer not to use the word “late” because there is nothing wrong with the times people arrive. It is simply the accepted thing to do in their own country.