A couple of days ago I asked readers to do me a "favor" and read the above article. Six people have. That Wednesday afternoon I got on aldaily.com. The first-cited piece in the "Essays and Opinion" section was blurbed as Reading Tocqueville in Beijing.
That was an immediate click of the mouse.
I read the first two paragraphs.
...
I read the first two paragraphs again.
I still didn't understand.
I read the next few paragraphs with the idea that it would get clearer with more context.
When it did not get clearer with context I had the instantaneous thought, "Is this guy Chinese?" I scrolled back up to the top. No and sort of. "No," the author was not a guy and "sort of," Rebecca Liao is of Chinese descent.
Why did I even have that thought?
Because the article is incoherent. And it is recognizably incoherent, it is incoherent with Chinese characteristics. How so? I printed the article out and took out my pen and began underlining with the idea, etc. I finished the article. I went back and looked over what I had underlined. It meanders, the article meanders. It wanders off on different paths and doesn't come back. It's not in the same forest at the end that it was at the beginning.
Today I printed the article out again, re-read it, re-underlined it. It does meander, it is incoherent, shapeless. If any readers had the same reaction, you're in...I don't know "good company," but "my" company.
Why is this so? Why, after reading just a few paragraphs did I think: "Chinese?" I remember after reading "Remembrance," writing here "Chinese do not argue well." I had a similar reaction to Jie Li's rebuttal to the post I wrote on her Providence, Rhode Island presentation. In fact, I sent Ms. Li's rebuttal to a China scholar for his thoughts. Without prompting from me he emailed me back "She is not very logical." That's another way of putting it. None of the three, Ms. Li's rebuttal, "Remembrance," and Ms. Liao's essay are logical, they are not reasoned well. So, why? The Chinese educational system was based on rote, there was not a lot of reasoning. Neither was argumentation as emphasized as in the West. Chinese Debate Societies? Not as prevalent. "Reaching consensus" is the Chinese Way, not winning an argument by the force of logic and rhetoric. Ms. Liao is an American attorney; I would not have thought a human being could emerge from an American law school without being able to write a focused, cogent essay. Ms. Liao has proved me wrong.
That was an immediate click of the mouse.
I read the first two paragraphs.
...
I read the first two paragraphs again.
I still didn't understand.
I read the next few paragraphs with the idea that it would get clearer with more context.
When it did not get clearer with context I had the instantaneous thought, "Is this guy Chinese?" I scrolled back up to the top. No and sort of. "No," the author was not a guy and "sort of," Rebecca Liao is of Chinese descent.
Why did I even have that thought?
Because the article is incoherent. And it is recognizably incoherent, it is incoherent with Chinese characteristics. How so? I printed the article out and took out my pen and began underlining with the idea, etc. I finished the article. I went back and looked over what I had underlined. It meanders, the article meanders. It wanders off on different paths and doesn't come back. It's not in the same forest at the end that it was at the beginning.
Today I printed the article out again, re-read it, re-underlined it. It does meander, it is incoherent, shapeless. If any readers had the same reaction, you're in...I don't know "good company," but "my" company.
Why is this so? Why, after reading just a few paragraphs did I think: "Chinese?" I remember after reading "Remembrance," writing here "Chinese do not argue well." I had a similar reaction to Jie Li's rebuttal to the post I wrote on her Providence, Rhode Island presentation. In fact, I sent Ms. Li's rebuttal to a China scholar for his thoughts. Without prompting from me he emailed me back "She is not very logical." That's another way of putting it. None of the three, Ms. Li's rebuttal, "Remembrance," and Ms. Liao's essay are logical, they are not reasoned well. So, why? The Chinese educational system was based on rote, there was not a lot of reasoning. Neither was argumentation as emphasized as in the West. Chinese Debate Societies? Not as prevalent. "Reaching consensus" is the Chinese Way, not winning an argument by the force of logic and rhetoric. Ms. Liao is an American attorney; I would not have thought a human being could emerge from an American law school without being able to write a focused, cogent essay. Ms. Liao has proved me wrong.
