This note will briefly describe main culture traits of India, China, Iran, South Korea and Japan – the Asian countries that in one way or another, have some interesting relationships with the United States. The country summaries are based mostly on “Mosby’s pocket guide to cultural health assessment” (D’Avanzo, 2007) unless cited otherwise. From those backgrounds, the paper will then proceed to discuss a few cultural-psychological variables.
The basics about India, China, Iran, South Korea and Japan
Being the third largest religion in the world, Hinduism strongly believes in reincarnation - souls can travel to other new bodies upon the passing of the previous bodies. The body - in such case - is crucial as the host of the soul thus the importance of procreation (Human Rights Campaign, 2018). Consequently, the concept of time involves unending cycles.
Healthcare is still under the influence of traditional philosophies and religious beliefs with systems such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Yoga, Naturopathy and Homeopathy. In rural area, the major health problems are pneumonia, bronchitis and asthma. Cancer is a notable health problem nationwide mostly due to pollution.
Indians have patriarchal society, family-oriented culture with males being dominant. The society has a clear distinction of rights, duties, and classes. However, this culture is under changes especially when men and especially women are getting more educated.
“Harmony” is the main theme in Chinese culture. Health was related to flows of “chi” (body energy) and should be maintained in order to stay in harmony with others and nature. This is one of the main reasons why some Chinese people still prefer herbal medicines (natural ingredients). However, Western medicines are being used, sometimes in conjunction with herbal medicines which might cause undesired side effects. Among the men, 24% smoke, 21% regularly drink alcohol, and 14% regularly do exercises.
Chinese have a family-oriented culture with different roles based on generation, age, birth order, etc. Decisions are usually made by people with higher roles. The concept of time is relaxed with no language difference between past and present tenses. People are encouraged to contain their strong feelings including pains. Traditional diet has high sodium and sugar due to the use of soy sauce and preserved foods.
Iran has a widespread healthcare program with mental health care integrated. However, traditional belief such as illness can be caused by “evil eye” still exists. Traditional healers are sometimes consulted. Psychological therapy still faces challenges.
Iran has patriarchal society, family oriented and male dominant culture. The social status of women, however, are not depressed as they can hold high positions in the society such as parliament members, doctors, teachers, and so on.
South Korean’s core healthcare belief is very close to that of China - promoting healthy balance and flows of “chi” also known as body’s energy flows. Illness is thus considered as disturbed “chi” flows. Healthcare is a mix of Western, holistic and traditional methods which are quite similar to traditional Chinese methods as well. Private healthcare has a strong impact, occupying around 90% of main healthcare capacities (beds, doctors, and facilities). Entire population has healthcare insurance. In most cases, families will actively give care for their ill family members.
Japan health problems are well-known, and the causes are shifting more towards lifestyle-related diseases as the Japanese have strong habits of working too hard, smoking, and eating high fat contents. Doctors have highest regards in the society and patients do not usually seek second-opinion. Family plays important role in the care of patients (alongside with nurses). Japanese infant mortality rates are at the lowest among industrialized nations. The Japanese have better grasp of time than others as being on time for work is important to them.
Culture and the Physical environments
Miyamoto found that the surrounding environment may influence the way the people think (Miyamoto, Nisbett, Masuda, 2006). There were two rounds that both involve carefully selected scenery pictures of schools, hotels and post offices. Round 1’s results indicated that Japanese sceneries are more complex while objects in American sceneries stand out more due to less complex backgrounds. Round 2’s results indicated that both American and Japanese participants, once primed with Japanese sceneries, paid more attentions to contextual information when examining other pictures. Such interesting results give us a little more insight into the cultural differences as of why Asians are usually better with context-dependent cognitive process while Americans are more accurate in absolute tasks.The paper "Large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture" (Talhelm et al, 2014) provides some insights into cultural differences within regions inside a country. The main idea involves the subsistence style theory which explains cultural differences based on other subtler differences. The paper proposed a Rice theory, explaining why some regions have interdependent culture while others have independent culture. The paper compared the efforts in growing wheat and growing rice. Since it is much harder to grow rice, the paper believes regions that grow rice will have interdependent culture while wheat growing regions will have more independent culture. Through collected statistics on GDP, divorce rate, inventions, implicit individualism, and rice per capita in conjunction with surveying 1019 Han-Chinese participants in 28 provinces, the paper made a strong case for their Rice theory within China. However, the paper did not prove that similar results will be achieved in other parts of Asia and the world. Therefore, while the proof in China case is strong, it is not enough to really back up the Rice theory.
In either cases, it is evident that local environments appear to have strong influence on local cultures, and even the dynamics among different cultures. If the environment is one variable then we have to ask ourselves “How many other variables are there and how they interact with each other ?”
The other variables affecting culture
It is notable that more than half of the participated South Koreans sleep less than 7 hours, drink often, have a high stress level and married co-habit (Jang, Lee, Kim, Choi & Park, 2018). It could be explained by “Chaebols” and the Korean Drinking culture."Chaebols" are the South Korean conglomerates (Sup Chang, 1998) of which SamSung is an example. In the case of SamSung, they have intercontinental shipping lines, import/export agencies, universities, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. Since Chaebols are extremely powerful and highly competitive in many markets, it would be very stressful for companies that are not Chaebols to compete with Chaebols. While there are some pros and cons of Chaebols, the cons are causing unfair competition climate and weighing down some portions of the Korean work force.
Drinking is another problem in the culture of South Korea (Park, Oh, & Lee, 1998). In Itaewon, most bars open until 6am, some restaurants open 24/7 and the streets are most empty around 8am on weekends when people are finished with their parties and go home. Psy and Snoop Dogg described that part of the culture quite accurate in their video clip "Hangover" (Officialpsy, 2014). Being so dependent on alcohol, they may not feel the need for psychological counseling and may not realize the long-term effects of drinking over their mental health. This problem gets worst under the influence of hierarchical society. For example, an employee should not refuse his boss’ invitation to a post-work drinking session. It is also very impolite to refuse a drink poured by people with higher roles.
War/long-term conflicts can also be another variable affecting culture. In the case of Iran, the embargo put a toll on the economy which makes the Iranian lifestyles different from people in other countries. It is notable that Iran has higher GDP per capita than China but also has much higher percentage of people living below poverty line. In the case of South Korea, they are technically still in war with the North Korea. All of their adult men have to go through military training at least once. Such comradery may be one reason for why the South Koreans love to go out in groups.
Literacy rates are found to have big impacts on culture and mental health care. The more educated the people, the more willing they are to psychology counseling. They are more aware of the services offered as well as being more analytical in interpreting results. However, some issues keep increasing not because the people's lacks of awareness. For example, the Japanese are very well aware of their work-related stress problems.
At the end of the day, the differences between cultures may be rooted in something very small. Such small things become more important in differentiating sub-cultures within a bigger culture which is crucial in avoiding cultural bias/generalization, increasing awareness, and reducing possible barriers - the important tasks a good psychologist should pay attention to. On the quest for excellency, I will keep the subsistence theory in mind and will try my best to drill down deeper in difference directions, keeping a sharp eye on small yet important factors and understand different cultures better.
References
D’Avanzo, C. (2007). Mosby’s pocket guide to cultural health assessment (4th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier.Wikipedia contributors. (2019, January 24). List of Asian countries by population. Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved February 3, 2019, from https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_countries_by_population
Human Rights Campaign. (2018, August 1). Stances of faiths on LGBTQ issues: Hinduism. Retrieved January 18, 2019, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-hinduism
Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R.E., & Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and the physical environment. Psychological Science, 17( 2), 113-119
Talhelm, T., Zhang, X., Oishi, S., Shimin, C., Duan, D., Lan, X., & Kitayama, S. (2014). Large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science, 344(6184), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1246850
Jang, J., Lee, S. A., Kim, W., Choi, Y., & Park, E. C. (2018). Factors associated with mental health consultation in South Korea. BMC psychiatry, 18(1), 17. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5778761/
Sup Chang, C. (1988). Chaebol: The South Korean conglomerates. Business Horizons, 31(2), 51–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(88)90081-x
Park, S. C., Oh, S. I., & Lee, M. S. (1998). Korean status of alcoholics and alcohol-related health problems. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 22(Suppl 3), 170S-172S. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00000374-199803001-00020
Officialpsy. (2014, June 8). PSY - HANGOVER (feat. Snoop Dogg) M/V [Video file]. Retrieved February 1, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMNOlYcpHg
