Cultural Patterns and Processes

In November 1987 the first KFC in mainland China opened near Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It soon opened in other large cities, then in smaller ones, and by the end of 2023 there were more than 10,000 KFC restaurants in China. Its menu changed on the way: a Chinese KFC breakfast can be rice porridge and fried dough sticks (youtiao), not an American one. One company shows several ideas in this unit at once: a trait from one culture spreads, moves down from big cities to small ones, and changes to fit the culture it arrives in.

Culture 文化 is the shared set of beliefs, values, practices, and objects of a group of people. Geographers split it into two parts:

• Material culture 物质文化 — the things people make and use (clothing, tools, food, buildings, art).
• Nonmaterial culture 非物质文化 — the ideas people hold (language, religion, values, rules).

A cultural trait 文化特征 is a single element of culture (using chopsticks); a group of linked traits is a cultural complex. Cultural relativism 文化相对论 is the practice of judging a culture by its own standards rather than your own.

The cultural landscape 文化景观 is the visible imprint of human activity on the land — buildings, farms, roads, signs, and monuments. It records the values of the people who made it.

• Sequent occupance 承继占用 is the idea that each group who lives in a place leaves a layer on the landscape, so the landscape shows its whole history.
• Ethnic enclaves 族裔聚居区, religious buildings, and language on signs are all readable clues to who lives there and what they value.

• Toponyms 地名 (place names) are part of the landscape too: Los Angeles and San Francisco are Spanish names left by Spanish settlement in California, long after Spanish rule ended.

Worked example: sequent occupance in Mexico City. The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was built on an island in a lake from 1325, with the great temple (Templo Mayor) at its centre. After the Spanish conquest in 1521, the Spanish knocked down the temple and used its stones to build a cathedral and government buildings next to the same square, on a Spanish street grid. In 1978 electricity workers digging near the square found a huge carved Aztec stone, and the temple ruins were dug out. Today a visitor can stand in one place and see all three layers: Aztec ruins, a Spanish cathedral and a modern city square.

Cultures spread across space in patterns. Key ideas:

• Centripetal forces 向心力 pull a group together (a shared language or religion); centrifugal forces 离心力 push it apart.
• Acculturation 文化适应 (adopting some traits of another culture while keeping your own), assimilation 同化 (fully blending into another culture), and syncretism 融合 (two cultures blending into something new) describe how cultures change on contact.
• A lingua franca 通用语 is a common language used between groups who speak different first languages.

Worked example (a real AP exam question). "Explain how food preferences can be a culture trait." (2023) A full-mark answer: "Many dishes use ingredients or ways of cooking that are unique to one culture group — for example a national dish — so choosing and eating that food expresses belonging to the group, which is what makes it a culture trait." The command word Explain needs a link, not a definition: connect the food preference to the idea of a shared culture. Simply listing foods earns zero.

Diffusion 扩散 is the spread of a cultural trait from its hearth 源地 (place of origin) to new areas. There are two big families.

• Relocation diffusion 迁移扩散 — the trait moves as people migrate, so it appears in the new place but may fade at the source.
• Expansion diffusion 扩展扩散 — the trait spreads outward while staying strong at the source. It has three types:
  • Contagious 传染扩散 — spreads person-to-person to nearby people (like a viral video).
  • Hierarchical 等级扩散 — jumps from big, important places to other big places first (a fashion from major cities).
  • Stimulus 刺激扩散 — the underlying idea spreads even if the exact trait changes (a global brand adapting its menu locally).

Diffusion has both historical and contemporary causes.

• Historical: colonialism 殖民主义, imperialism 帝国主义, trade, and the spread of religion carried culture across the world for centuries.
• Contemporary: globalisation 全球化, the internet, transport, and time–space compression 时空压缩 speed diffusion up enormously — a trend can now spread worldwide in hours.

Worked example: time–space compression. In 2012 the K-pop song "Gangnam Style" became the first video on YouTube to reach one billion views, about five months after its release. Earlier waves of culture took decades to cross the world by ship. Here a song spread from Seoul to almost every country in months, by contagious diffusion from person to person online, and hierarchical diffusion when famous people and big TV shows copied the dance. A lingua franca helps too: English on social media lets people share a trait across language borders.

These forces can spread culture but also threaten local traditions, raising debates about a global culture versus local identity.

Religions and languages are the two clearest examples of cultural diffusion.

• Universalising religions 普世宗教 (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism) actively seek converts and spread widely by expansion and relocation diffusion. Ethnic religions 民族宗教 (Hinduism, Judaism) are tied to one group and spread mainly by relocation.
• Languages belong to language families 语系; they spread with migration and trade, and can split into dialects 方言 or die out as speakers switch to a dominant language.

The Indo-European language family shows language diffusion on the largest scale: from a hearth probably north of the Black Sea, its languages spread across Europe and into Iran and India. Colonialism then carried English, Spanish, Portuguese and French to the Americas, Africa and Oceania, which is why nearly half the world's people today speak an Indo-European language as their first language.

When cultures spread and meet, several outcomes follow:

• Cultural convergence 文化趋同 — cultures become more alike as they share traits (global brands, English online).
• Cultural divergence 文化分化 — a culture becomes more distinct, often to resist outside influence.
• Diffusion can enrich a place with new food, music, and ideas, but can also erode local languages and traditions — a central tension of a globalising world.

Free-response parts are scaffolded by their command verbs. Identify needs a term or example; describe needs its features; explain needs a because: how or why, with a real example.

Answer (a), (b) and (c).

(a) Identify ONE example of relocation diffusion.

(b) Describe hierarchical diffusion.

(c) Explain ONE way globalisation can threaten a local culture.

Model answer.

• (a) Migrants from China carrying their language and cuisine to cities such as San Francisco.
• (b) A trait spreads from large or powerful places to smaller ones, for example a fashion moving from global cities to smaller towns.
• (c) Global media and brands can replace local products and languages, so younger people adopt a global popular culture instead of local traditions.

• Distinguish relocation diffusion (people move) from expansion diffusion (the idea spreads and stays at its source).
• Name the expansion sub-type precisely: contagious, hierarchical, or stimulus.
• Separate universalizing religions (seek converts) from ethnic religions (spread mainly by birth).
• Use the cultural landscape — architecture, toponyms, sequent occupance — as evidence of past groups.
• For effects, keep acculturation, assimilation, and syncretism distinct; they are not the same.