The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.24 (978 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B0721VGDYD |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 112 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2018-01-29 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Never have East and West come as close as they are today, yet we are still baffled by one another. Is our mantra "To thine own self be true"? Or do we believe we belong to something larger than ourselves - a family, a religion, a troop - that claims our first allegiance? Gish Jen - drawing on a treasure trove of stories and personal anecdotes, as well as cutting-edge research in cultural psychology - reveals how this difference shapes what we perceive and remember, what we say and do and make - how it shapes everything from our ideas about copying and talking in class to the difference between Apple and Alibaba. The Girl at the Baggage Claim is a provocative and important study of the different ideas easterners and westerners have about the self and society and what this means for current debates in art, education, geopolitics,
R. Alfaro said ” Who better to write about the East West culture gap. Gish Jen describes herself as “a person from an interdependent background” who “developed a full-blown individualistic side.” Who better to write about the East West culture gap? Jen is an acclaimed novelist, an Asian American who has taught in both America and China, and The Girl At the Baggage Claim comes alive because of her insightful, wide-ranging curiosity and her engaging style.Jen finds that Asians focus more “on the context than the object in it the general than the exceptional the group than the individual the ordinary than the extraordi. Required reading This should be required reading for people doing business internationally. While much of the focus is on China, Gish Jen really is offering a broader and more powerful way to approach cross-cultural relations. As a former vendor to the largest semiconductor company in the world, I now recognize a few of the "avocado pit" disasters that might have been avoided as business shifted from the US to Makati/Cavite to Penang to Chengdu. From board members to strategic managers to field engineers and support reps, this book can help business people understand the perspectives of partne. "Engaging and Eloquent" according to Cheryl Savageau. It would be hard to overstate the importance of this new book by Gish Jen.At a time when we need understanding across cultures so desperately, Jen has written eloquently about the differences between East and West. Jen finds the main differences in the differing ideas of self - the highly individual sense of self that the West holds, which Jen calls the “avocado pit” self; and the interdependent, “flexi-self” found, not only in the East, but in most of the non-Western world. Jen gives examples of these differences through stories and studies, and even t