Gish Jen at Harvard
Gish Jen has made a literary career in part from writing about the experiences of Chinese-Americans. During a lunchtime talk at Harvard Law School (HLS), she discussed her latest book, “The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap,” making the case for the sociological and cultural patterns that influence many aspects of identity. Describing the Western reality as “pit self” (and showing a cartoon image of an avocado person) and Eastern thought as ‘flexi-self” (a bendable Gumby), Jen said Asians think of their identity as closely entwined with family and community, while Americans strive to be independent-minded. Using an image of a lion in the African Savannah to distill her argument, she said the pit self sees the lion while the flexi-self sees the savannah in relation to the lion. Jen got support for her theory during her March 29 talk from a small panel of speakers that included...