Asians, Americans Show Perceptual Divide
WASHINGTON (AP) - Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently. Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the...
Circa 1969, SE Asia. Am sitting outside with a family of Vietnamese and sharing a meal. Working the chopsticks was something new to me, and so I asked why they employed such dinnerware. During the ensuing long winded reply highlighting the vast improvement such utensils were over western-style impliments, I happened to spy a nearby farmer relocating some haystacks.
Using a pitchfork. Pointing to the man, I then asked if prior to the introduction of pitchforks, they instead simply slapped a long stick under each arm to do such work. I was told, why no, pitchforks of one kind of another had always been used by asians because to try and move individual strands or clumps of things with sticks was just plain silly.
Oh and by the way; maybe not seeing the forest for the trees was what kept the asians from developing anything remotely useful, as these are the folks who brought you acupuncture because they didn't think vivisection would be of benefit in understanding the human body, herbal remedies because they never established the modern scientific methodology necessary to investigate and develop pharmaceuticals, no printing presses, no electricity, no internal combustion engine, no wireless communications, the only things that could fly were birds and kites, and had a form of gunpowder thought to be useful only for niffty firework displays.
Linear thinking, you can look it up. Wait. Tea. Almost forgot about tea. Never mind.
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