When I ask you to describe your favourite food, how will you
describe it to me? From my own experience, the English native speaker will
usually tell me his/her favourite food directly, expressing how much he/she
likes the food, especially what the feeling of tasting the food he/she will
have. English mind-set is “I”-oriented: it is about my feelings about the food,
my taste, what I like about it. All about “me”.
However, my Chinese friends, they will usually think for a
while—a process of choosing which one to tell me based on their assumption of my
preference, and then ask me, “Have you ever tasted A? I guess you will like it!”
They will roughly mention “I like it” and then skip to talk about the food
itself and usually end up by saying “You should give it a try! It’s great!” Here, I notice that the Chinese mind-set in
narrating things is “You”-oriented---I don’t mind whether I like it or not, but
I like to see that you like what I like. What’s the importance of letting the listener
like what the speaker likes? I am not sure; maybe it has to do with the
Oriental mind-set of emphasizing on relationship?
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