Two sides of one coin.

In our tradition, keeping silent in the public is regarded as a virtue. It is firmly believed that private selves can never be shown to others. Mom used to tell me that respect every secret I have, if it is a secret and personal, then we should not make it be known. Personally, I agree with her. In my culture, let others know what we are thinking about and the feeling we have is dangerous. Even though I must admit that we may lose the happiness when we can not share the joys in life, showing our emotion makes you can be easily controlled by others.

It is common that the Chinese are good at hiding our emotion. Most of Americans can not understand the reason why we always have the same preference and taste and we give the identical choice or answer to questions. And we are usually considered be lack of creativity. However, things are not what they look like.

We should realize that it is not easy to control our emotion, and even harder to hide the feelings.
Remarkable amount of effort and willpower are needed to conceal the negative emotions. And we worship the power which can make us conquer ourselves. In our philosophy, if one can not control himself, people will not choose to trust him. The willpower is always the strongest power in the world. A real man may not have the strong body, but must own a strong mind.

I would say that kissing and hugging in public was impossible before 1980s in China. According to Confucianism,which influenced us for thousands of years, intimate behaviors between genders are regarded as offensive and immoral. But everything has changed since people went out and saw the different modern cultures. Nowadays, you can see people kiss and hug everywhere especially in the colleges of China. The youth think it is romantic and helpful to improve their personal relationships.

The public and private selves are just like the two sides of one coin. But most of time, people can only view one side. The other side is always a secret, especially of Chinese.