From 2004 to 2007, there were four TV series "Children at Home", which mainly told various stories after Xia Donghai and Liu Mei remarried. The protagonists of the story are Yu Xia and Xia Xue, sons brought by Xia Donghai, the father of a children's screenwriter, and Liu Xing, son brought by Liu Mei, the most knowledgeable medical worker. Three children with different personalities live together and have all kinds of happy stories. There are other people related to this family in the play, such as grandpa, grandma, Liu Xing's father Hu Yitong, Xia Xue and Yu Xia's mother Mary. Modern Family has been published for six seasons since 2009. The story revolves around three typical American families, which are interrelated. The first family, Jay, who is over 500 years old, just married Gloria, beautiful wife and adolescent stepson Manny, the second family, Mickey and Cam, gay and adopted son Lily, and the third family is the Dunphy family, housewife Claire, good husband Phil, beautiful eldest daughter Haley and clever second daughter. At the same time, Jay is also the father of Claire and Mickey, and also the grandfather of the children.
These two TV plays have a lot in common. First of all, they are all comedies, comedies shot around family life, and family stories of grandparents, fathers and grandchildren appearing on the screen at the same time. The characters in the play are typical. For example, Xia Xue in "Family with Children" and Alex in "Modern Family" are smart schoolmasters, while Yu Xia and Luke are both parents' good treasures because they are the youngest children in the family. Liu Xing and Haley are both bad boys in both plays. Liu Mei in the play, like Claire and Gloria, takes good care of children and helps them solve various problems.
In common, we can see many differences. Alex and Xia Xue, both principals, are treated differently at school and at home. Because of his good academic performance, Xia Xue is very popular at school and his parents at home. Therefore, because of Liu Xing's troubles or poor grades, his mother Liu Mei often teaches him to learn from his sister. Moreover, Xia Xue likes reading and often studies in his room, which is also acquiesced by his parents. My parents didn't say much, but they felt very smart and sensible, which made my parents feel at ease. On the other hand, Alex is different. At school, there is a bully who is unpopular. Even because he loves to study, he wants to be the first everywhere and has almost no friends. Alex failed to make new friends several times in the play. She didn't want to go to the party because she didn't have any friends, and she couldn't make a boyfriend because of the image of a bookworm. Her parents are also worried about her. One thing they often do is to ask Alex not to read books, go out to play more and make more friends instead of studying at home all the time. From here, we can see the great differences between Chinese and foreign education. China people want their children to read more books and study more, and they want their children to be principals. However, Americans seem to prefer to give children freedom and let them learn how to enjoy life instead of just reading all the time. Liu Xing and Haley, the bad boys in the two plays, also have different "treatment" at home, and their academic performance is also very poor. Liu Xing is often educated by her mother because of this, but Haley is not. Claire and Phil always tell her "We know you've worked hard", "Never mind" and "We love you". In this case, it seems that Chinese and American families attach different degrees of importance to school performance.
They value freedom and happiness more. Just like the gay couple Mickey and Cam adopted an Asian child Lily, they lived together for many years in the play, and they accepted each other's advantages and disadvantages. Such a gay couple adopted a yellow-skinned child together, which also shows Americans' pursuit of freedom. For them, love is free. It has no national boundaries, species boundaries and gender boundaries. Later, homosexuals were allowed to get married, and Mickey and Cam finally got married, which should also prove this point. In many TV dramas in China, homosexuality never seems to appear, let alone show love on the screen. From this perspective, most people in China are not as open and free as Americans, and same-sex marriage is unacceptable to most people.
There are grandparents in both plays. Both in China and the United States, grandchildren like their grandparents very much. There is no doubt that the grandparents in "A Family with Children" all appear as supporting roles, caring about the lives of grandchildren from time to time and giving them more love is a kind of hugging love. Although Jay in Modern Family treats his children and grandchildren equally, he appears as the protagonist in the play and has his own life. The life of a beautiful wife and stepson is equally happy and semi-involved. He has his own career and only helps children when they really need it. This is a kind of non-interference love. The grandparents in the play have their own lives, and they have their own ways to enjoy and love life. This is associated with the love of China's parents. No matter whether the children need it or not, they will always pay infinite attention to their children instead of enjoying life by themselves. They would rather suffer for themselves than their children, and they will never let it go, even after their children get married. Many times it is because parents still don't let go after marriage and still intervene in their children's lives, which leads to disharmony between husband and wife and mother-in-law. It is not unreasonable that all kinds of family dramas that appear from time to time in China TV dramas are related to the estrangement between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. China's parents' love is a little doting, as if they can't let go properly like American parents.
From the two plays, we can see the respective benefits of American culture in China. Only by constantly learning, abandoning bad ones and constantly improving yourself can we become better.