Differences in Chinese and Western Conceptions of Death from the Perspective of Cultural Dimension Theory: A Comparative Analysis of Coco and Lighting Up the Stars

This article aims to explore the reasons and impacts of differences in traditional life and death concepts between China and the West. All living beings have their own lives in the world but they will inevitably perish. This is an eternal truth. Life and death, as a lifelong reality have a great impact on the construction of the human spiritual world. Faced with the birth of life and the threat to death China and Western societies have developed different perspectives on life and death. There are differences in the way people think about the essence of death, the purpose of valuing life, and the understanding of the value of life between East and West. This article adopts Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory selecting dimensions such as individualism and collectivism power distance and uncertainty avoidance to compare the differences in life and death concepts between Chinese and Western films Coco and by comparing the Western concept of death reflected in Coco with the Chinese concept of death presented in Lighting Up the Stars, this article delves into the cultural roots of these differences including the influence of religion, philosophy historical traditions and other aspects.