The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap

Written by Gish Jen

Narrated by Caroline McLaughlin

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, and business.

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. As engaging as it is illuminating, this is a book that stands to profoundly enrich our understanding of ourselves and of our world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781541477087

Reviews for The Girl at the Baggage Claim

[steve02476 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A lot of interesting and illuminating stuff - I feel like I learned a lot. Good thoughts about individualistic vs communalist cultures, how they see each other, and some of the pros and cons of each. BUT I think the writing style is just too weird for me. She uses a metaphor of an avocado and its pit for individualists - ok, I get that, it’s a vivid metaphor that the individualist has this overwhelmingly big and inflexible self tucked away inside. But then she continues to refer to “big pit people” through the whole book. I found that jarring for a while, then it just got annoying. I think she’s got some really great ideas, and she uses some excellent literary quotes to illustrate her arguments, I just wish some of the terminology was a bit more conventional so I could focus on the ideas instead of the odd writing.

[fromthecomfychair · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Took me a long time to read, because of the research bits. I am definitely a "big pit avocado," though I thought it was a strange metaphor. The book did help me understand the interdependent culture of asians better.

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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."

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Girl at the Baggage Claim is Gish Jen's book explaining the East-West culture gap, by examining the differences between interdependent and independent people. We're all somewhere along a continuum, but in the West, and especially the US, we value independence and uniqueness, while in the East, using China as the main example, interdependence with one's family and community is stressed. Jen was raised by parents who had immigrated to the US from China, and now teaches at both American and Asian universities, giving her a perspective that takes in Eastern and Western cultures as both an insider and an outsider. Having lived in five countries, albeit all in the West, I'm fascinated by how the culture we are raised in shapes how we perceive the world. We make unconscious value judgements all the time, based on nothing more than what we're used to and as the world becomes an increasingly global place, we desperately need to make the effort to understand cultural differences and how to work with and around them. Jen does go a little academic at times with her subject matter, but it's clearly one that she understands and finds fascinating.