Read the passage to answer the questions that follows passage.
Passage II:
Not even a three-day brainstroming session among top psychologists at the Chinese University could unravel one of the world’s greatest puzzles-how the Chinese mindticks. Michael Bond had reason to pace the pavement of the Chinese University campus last week. The psychologist
who co-ordinated and moderated a three day seminar in Chinese psychology and most of the participants came a long way to knock head. “If a bombhits this building, muttered Bond, half-seriously, “it would wipe out the whole discipline.” But the only thing that went off in the Cho Yiu. Conference hall of Chinese University was the picking of brains, the pouring outof brains and a refrain from an on-going mantra: “More work needsto be done’ or ‘we don't know.”Eachofthe 36 participants was allowed 30 minutes plus use of an over-head projector to condense years of research into data and theories. Their contents spilled over from 20 are as of Chinese behaviour, including reading, learning styles, sychopathology, social interaction personaticty and modernisation. An over-riding question for observers, however, was why,in this group of
21 Chinese and 15 non-Chinese, weren't there more professionals from mainland China presenting research on the indigenous people? MichaelPhilips, a psychiatrist who works in Hubei Province, explained : “The Cultural Revolution silenced and froze the research”, said the
Canadian born doctor whohaslived and worked in China for more then 10 years. “And 12 years later, research is under waybut it is roo early to have anything yet. Besides, most of the models being used are from the West anything.”In such a specialised field, how can non-Chinese academics do research without possessing fluency in Chinese? These who cannot read, write or speak the language usually team up with Chinese colleagues. “In 10 years, we won't beable to do this. It’s a moneything,”said William Gabrenya ofFlorida Institute of Technology, who described him self as anilliterate Gweilo wholacks fluency in Chinese. Dr. Gabrenya raised questions such as why is research dependent on university students, whyis research done on Chinese people in coastal cities (Singapore, Taiwan, Shanghai and Hong Kong) but not in land? “Chinese psychology is too on fucian, too neat. He’s been dead a long time. How about the guy on a motorcycle in Taipei?” Dr. Gabrenya said, urging that research have a
more contemporary outlook.
The academics came from Israel, Sweden, Taiwan, Singapore, United States, British Columbia and, ofcourse, Hong Kong. Manyofthe visual aids they used by way of illustriation contained eye-squinting type and cobweb-like graphs. One speaker, a sociologist from Illionios, even warned her colleagues that she would not give anyone enough time to digest the long, skinny collumns of numbers. Is Chinese intelligence different from Western? For half of the audience who are illiterate in Chinese, Professor Jimmy Chan of HKU examined each of the Chinese characters for “intelligence”. Phrases such as “a mindas fast as an arrow” and connections between stokes for sun and the moon were made. After his 25-minute
speech, Chan and the group lamented that using Western tests are the only measure available to psychologists, who are starving for ndigenousstudies of Chinese by Chinese. How do Chinese children learn? David Kember of Hong Kong Polytechnic University zeroed in on deep learing
versus surface. Deep is when the student is sincerely interested for his own reasons. Surface is memorizing and spitting out facts, It doesn’t nurture any deep understanding. If the languageofinstruction happensto be the children’s second language, students in Hong Kong haveall sorts of challenges with English-speaking teachers from Australia, Britain and America with accents and colloquialisms. Do Westerners have moreself-esteem than Chinese? Dr. Leung Kwok, Chairman of the psychology department of Chinese University, points his finger at belief systems: The coilectivist mind-set often stereotypes Chinese unfairly. The philosophy of “yuen”(a concept used to explain good and bad events which are pre-determined and outofthe individual’s control does notfostera positive self-concept. Neitherdo collectivist beliefs, such as sacrifice for the group, compromise and importance of using connections. “If a Chineselosesoffails, he has a stronger sense of responsibility. He tends to blame it on himself. A non-Chinese from the West may blameit on forces outside himself’, Dr. Leung said. By the end of the three day
session, there were as many questions raised as answered. It was agreed there was room for further research. To the layman, so much of the discussion wasforeign and riddled with jargon and on-going references to studies and researchers. The work of the participants will resource in a
forthcoming handbook of Chinese Psychology, which will be edited by Dr. Bond and published by Oxford University Press.
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