Two kinds of people

Americans (and perhaps others who live in the West) have often commented about the mysterious East without considering that the people of China, Japan, Thailand, etc., might think those who live in the other half of the world are a bit weird, as well.

Gish Jen, an American of Chinese ancestry, explores this cultural divide in her intriguing recent book The Girl at the Baggage Claim. She argues there are basically just two kinds of people in the world, those who put the individual first and those who put the group first. Both kinds can be found anywhere in the world, but the first kind dominates the West while the second kind dominates the East. Most of us, of course, are capable of identifying with both kinds, such as the baseball player who goes all out for the Indians until he is traded to the Phillies. Then it's Phillies do or die, unless the club won't give him the contract he thinks he deserves.

Although Westerners may work for a company, join clubs and churches, vote consistently for one political party or another and so forth, mostly we are individualistic. We are loyal to others, even members of our own family, only up to a point. Mostly we look out for No. 1.

In the East, families tend to be stronger. So are loyalties to larger groups, including the nation as a whole. Japan had kamikaze pilots in World War II, not the Americans.

Jen explores such subjects as why Asian students do so well in school and why Asian artists and engineers find nothing morally wrong with copying another's work of art or electronics. She also explains why Chinese autobiographies are often written in third person.

Neither kind of person is"more human than the other," she says. "Both are shaped by chance, circumstance, and human need."