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social traditions, norms and regulations. The concept of family or group is strong there.
During the Cultural Revolution period (1966 to 1976), factory unit or work unit gained
strength and took over family in determining one‟s decisions in life. Factories decided
people‟s housing, medical care, food allocation, pension and even marriage (Lu, 2004).
This has had some continued impact on the culture of Mainland China despite the recent
trends such as privatisation and the mushrooming self-employed people (Lu, 2004). In
contrast, the US is defined as a modern society, where individuality is highlighted.
These theories might have provide a true description of truth about the modernity, but I
might accept the theories with caution, as the US has its traditions and norms as well.
For example, I doubt whether the people in the US have fully abandoned the concept of
family and refused to recognise the merits of collective work and cohesive groups. It
appears that over-generalisation of a culture might lead to a narrow and biased view
toward this culture without considering specific cases.
Power distance is the degree to which members of organisations and institutions
accept and expect power‟s unequal distribution. Again, this is important in order to
appreciate any possible problems translators may have when translating subtitles from
English into Chinese for Friends, which contains many scenes where a Chinese
audience might expect rigid rules surrounding power distance. In China, a high level of
power and wealth inequality is accepted (Jaw, Ling, Wang & Chang, 2007). In the US,
by comparison, a greater equality between societal levels is valued. Employees do not
think that they should be inferior to their employers or superiors. In the US workplace,
there are occasions on which employees argue with and make jokes about their
supervisors. In China, a subordinate would not contemplate the possibility of arguing
with his/her supervisor or challenging his/her supervisor‟s view outright. In most cases,
subordinates compliment their supervisors and follow their supervisors‟ command
without questioning (Jaw et al, 2007). These differences would suggest that Chinese
people are conscious of their rank in the organisation. The awareness of the hierarchical
structure of an organisation or communication in the US is not as strong as it is in China
(Reuvid & Yong, 2005). My personal opinion to this issue is that some other variables
such as the size of the business and the industry in which an organisation operates might
have their impact as well. A small or medium enterprise is less likely to adopt a
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