AMERICANS AND CHINESE: Two Ways of Life

If it were possible to capture the imagination of the isolationist American reader with a book which might offset the provincial viewpoint about other cultures, this book should fill that niche. Written by a Chinese scholar with a leavening feeling for humanity, filled with incidents of liveliness and color and charm, this book has immense impact. Through analysis of Chinese and American cultures and beliefs as expressed in everyday living, the author points up the fact that these two peoples stand at opposite poles: the Chinese situation-centered, the Americans individual-centered. With humor and wit and perception, Mr. Hsu shows the negative and positive values of both, the colorful and dramatic differences. He makes his points with scenes from plays and movies, incidents from comics, lovelorn columns from the press, characteristic situations illustrating the attitudes towards sex, the relation of parent and child, etc. While the times are less sympathetic- the market might yet be something of the one that read avidly Lin Yutang's My Country and My People. This reader- at any rate- loved it.