Wang Huiyao of the China Western Returned Scholars Association, which celebrates its centenary this year, observes that sea turtles have returned in five waves.
He adds humbly that perhaps he was “superior to the common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully. ”
But even so, American culture is still a big leap for most of them, because observing something as an outsider is definitely different than experiencing it on one’s own.
A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks.
It is important to point out that students also need to have a deep understanding of their own culture before they can begin to observe, analyze and evaluate other cultures.
I found, as Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husbands to be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share this expectation of their wives.
In the idealized version of how science is done, facts about the world are waiting to be observed and collected by objective researchers who use the scientific method to carry out their work.
“Their capacity for tolerating stress may even be greater than men's, ” she observes, “it's just that they're dealing with so many more things that they become worn out from it more visibly and sooner. ”
Nonetheless, at Yale, I have often observed our faculty actively encouraging students to interrogate data and other ideas presented to them, and I have seen students change their minds when confronted with contrary evidence.