主题：【求助】做中国文化的一个解释、阐述、讲课 -- springisok

before, and I find that Spaniards shared many similarities with Chinese.

1. very strong family values. In Spain, there was a law which says that if you do not spend time and money to take care of your seniors, you can be penalized by the state.

2. Do not respect timeliness.

3. Guanxi: everything is done through friend's friend or friend's relatives. My Dutch friend joked that he rented his first apartment in Madrid through a friend's friend. Do not respect contractual obligations as seriously as the Americans and Germans.

4. Both nations went through a horrible 100 years of extreme political turmoil and then ended up with a dictator (in Spain's case, Franco) after WWII. Spain was the backwater of EU and it was so eager to join European community in early 1980s and wanted to be "accepted" and recognized by the civilized world.

Chinese has similar psychological pattern: what Chinese love to talk is 国际惯例 after late 1970s' openup to the outside world. Chinese want to be recognized by the global community for long time and this feeling was obvious in its bid to sponsor the 2008 International Olympics Event. When China won the bid in 2001, the whole Beijing was filled with celebrating crowd. From a typical businessman's perspective, it is a money-losing activity. But from the perspective of national pride, it makes a lot of senses.

5. Both Spain and China are large export nations: in terms of export of human resources. Many young spaniards left their own country and earned a living in France, Germany or Britain in 1980s and 1990s because political suppression (under Franco then), low domestic pay and better career opportunities. There was a 10-year long housing boom between late 1990s to 2008, and many Spaniards are proud for that. But after the recent sovereign crisis, many Spaniards are fleeing to Germany and Latin America again.

In 1980s and 1990s, China has a massive exodus of young talents (e.g., Tsinghua U.). There was a small reversal after the American credit crisis, but I think as soon as China slows down again under a bubbling banking sytem, we will see exodus again.

6. Office culture: both Spaniards and Chinese are very hierarchical.

7. Spaniards, deeply in their hearts, are very arrogant and proud of their prominent global status in the 15th-17th century, just like Chinese are very proud of their former glory: we can read tons of such articles on this forum. Many people predict that Chinese will beat America soon in terms of economic/military power. Spaniards shared similar national pride as well.

Actually, Turks also share that kind of pride too. They would tell that a large chunk of today's Europe is just "my ancester's play ground".

8. BTW, Spanish culture is a very pessimistic culture: it was drawn from many frustrations this nation experienced in the last 500 years.

9. Spanish culture is a Masculinity culture: men are supposed to show off masculinary appearance, be assertive and be handsome. Spaniards could be quite superficial, if you know them well.

It is normal for successful men to have mistresses: this is quite similar to today's Chinese. Spaniards were devout Catholics, but now they are just Catholics in name. Chinese claim they have family values, but we also see a slow disintegration of family in today's China.

Both nations are evolving and today's facts could be quite different from their lip services.