Jack’s Cross (X) - Brain & Cultural Model: Analogy-metaphor of Human Brain & its functional- 
structural, lateralization-dominance features; applied to X-Cultural Differences West & East. These differences as evolution of Human Species – its adventure – the X-fertilization of cultural opposites.

1. Linkage For Life
About Jack
• Last 4 years in China teaching English,
business & culture courses (international
marketing, intercultural business communication,
U.S. culture) in universities.
• 12 years before this, worked in Australia
(also American & Canadian – has 3
citizenships) developed & presented various
adult education courses.
• Before teaching, inventor & entrepreneur
starting up his own businesses, husband &
father, writer of poetry & prose.
• Long time interest in Eastern Culture,
China: Kongzi/Confucianism, Buddhism,
Daoism – Yi Ching, Poetry – Du Fu, Li Bai

2. Linkage For Life “Jack of All Trades, Master of None”
• A “caveat” or “beware”
• Concerning my topic of “Cultural-
Civilizational Differences”
• “Amateur” not a “professional” – my
“confessional”
• The etymology of the word amateur from
Latin word for “heart” amor
• A person who does something for love of it
rather than for money
• No “career” – more a “careen”!
• Multi/X-Undisciplined! Roam the world of
ideas without borders – passport=passion

3. Linkage For Life
Jack’s X-Brain & Cultural Model
• Analogy-metaphor of Human Brain & its functional-
structural, lateralization-dominance features
• Applied to X-Cultural Differences West & East
• These differences as evolution of Human Species – its
adventure – the X-fertilization of cultural opposites
• Comparative Dualities (compete & complete)
– West vs. East
– Left Brain vs. Right Brain
– Male vs. Female
– Reason vs. Feeling
– Science vs. Art
– Devil vs. Dragon
– Cure vs. Care
Ending with Future
vision of best of West
& East linked

4. Linkage For Life
Learning For & From Yourself
“You learn much that can
never be taught.”
• Educate etymologically
means “to draw out of”…
not to “put into”.
• Socrates never claimed to
be a teacher. He saw his
role as a “midwife” that
could help bring to birth the
“Good” that was waiting to
be born inside of everyone.

5. Linkage For Life
Learning For Yourself
"In ancient times,
men learned with a
view to their own
improvement.
Nowadays, men
learn with a view to
the approval of
others.“ Kongzi

6. Linkage For Life What Is Self-Knowledge
& Why Is It Important?
“The most difficult thing
to know is yourself”
Thales of Miletus
• "What the superior
man seeks, is in
himself. What the
mean man seeks, is in
others.” Kongzi
Perhaps the essence of our
evolution as human beings is
to keep answering, on
deeper and deeper levels,
the basic question:"Who am
I." Thus, we define
ourselves…learning to take
more and more responsibility
for our existence and well-
being. – Nathaniel Brandon

7. Linkage For Life
XIN – Chinese Heart and Mind
EQ 1,000s of Years Before the West
• The separation of heart and
mind is un-Chinese
• Xin, in ancient times, meant
both heart and mind
• The heart as feeling into the
other emphasized by Neo-
Confucian Zhu Xi (1130-1200)
Thus, the Chinese since ancient
times have included Emotional
Intelligence (EQ) with Rational
Intelligence (IQ).

8. Linkage For Life
Linkage Theory of Maturity
“This linkage theory of maturity sees
man as a creature who lives by
and through relationships; who
becomes himself through linkages
with the non-self. Growing up
means growing into—growing
into a complex set of social
relationships: linkages of
affection, sympathy, shared work,
shared beliefs, shared memories,
good will toward fellow humans.”
O.A. Overstreet

9. Linkage For Life Challenges
for Today’s Students & Early Careerists
• Highly competitive first job
market with need to stand out
from the “crowd” with attitudes
& skills employers want
• Little “Soft Skills” – self-
knowledge, interpersonal &
learning skills taught in today’s
university
• Low self-confidence in many
Chinese young adults with
parents & society often making
their decisions for them
“Choose a job
you love, and you
will never have to
work a day in your
life.” Confucius
(Kongzi)

10. Linkage For Life Discover the “YOUniqueYou”
Graduate from Your Own Youniversity
• Discover & create your
“YOUniqueness” to “stand
out” from the crowd &
succeed in the highly
competitive global
workplace. “You may not be
able to leave the
world a better
place, but you can
leave it as a better
person.”

11. Linkage For Life
Awareness of Your Unawareness
Socrates seems to have often stated that
his wisdom was limited to an awareness
of his own ignorance.
Self-knowledge is about learning that you
do NOT know something– & then
learning it if important.
“When you know a thing, to hold that you
know it, and when you do not know a
thing, to acknowledge that you do not
know it--this is knowledge.” Kongzi

12. Linkage For Life
Noticing What We Have
Never Noticed Before
Now, to start us off, an experiment.
Clasp your hands together –
interlock your fingers.
Now, notice which thumb is on top
of the other – is it your left or
right thumb on top?
Now, do the opposite, put the other
THUMB on top & interlock
differently.

13. Linkage For Life Noticing What We Have
Never Noticed Before
Now, think about how you put
your pants on in the morning.
Do you put your left leg into
the pant first or your right leg?
You may have to move your leg to
experiment.
The point is, most of you are not
aware which leg you put first
into your leg.

14. Linkage For Life
CULTURAL
COMPETENCY
Remember –
most of what
you learned
as your
culture was
not taught to
you – but you
learned it
without
awareness
COMPETENT NOT COMPETENT
C
O
N
S
C
I
O
U
S
3 - Conscious
Competence
• Theoretically
understand own & other
cultures
• Get “hands on”
experience of other
cultures & can see your
own through cultural
Other’s eyes.
2 - Conscious
Incompetence
• Aware of ethnocentrism as
learn about culture
• Learning own & other
cultures results in better
intercultural relationships,
higher grades, faster climb
of career ladder
NOT
C
O
N
S
C
I
O
U
S
4 - Unconscious
Competence
• Live long enough in
another culture to feel at
“home”
• When return to home
culture feel “reverse
culture shock” since you
have adapted so well to
host culture
1 - Unconscious
Incompetence
• Not aware of your
“ethnocentrism” – how your
culture has formed you
• Might refuse to admit you
are culturally “biased”
• Your culture is best & no
arguments!

15. Linkage For Life Seeing Things Differently

16. Linkage For Life
WEST
LEFT BRAIN
MALE
REASON
SCIENCE
DEVIL
CURE
• Analytic
• Field Independent
• Individual
• Internal Control
EAST
RIGHT BRAIN
FEMALE
FEELING
ART
DRAGON
CARE
• Holistic
• Field Dependent
• Collective
• External Control
DOMINANT
X
Eyes
Ears
Compete Complete
X
Hands
Feet

17. Linkage For Life LEFT BRAIN
• Abstract
classes
• Logic
• Past/now
• Verbal
• Linear
• Rational
• Quantify
• Write, talk
• Step by step
• Planned
• Motor control
• Details
RIGHT BRAIN
• Concrete
relationships
• Intuition
• Now/future
• Non-verbal
• Cyclical
• Non-rational
• Qualify
• Draw, touch
• All at once
• Spontaneous
• Music
• Big picture
Brain of Right Handed Person, Dominant Left Hemisphere

18. Linkage For Life
BRAIN DOMINANCE (Lateralization)
• Lateralization refers to
development of lateral dominance
(right or left eye, ear, hand, leg)
and development of specialised
centres and functions in the left and
right brain hemispheres.
• The right side of the body sends
messages to and is controlled by
the left side of the brain, and the
left side of the body by the right
side of the brain.

19. Linkage For Life
BRAIN DOMINANCE (Lateralization)
• Hemisphere “dominance”
does not mean that one side
of the brain controls the other
side.
• Rather, a person’s dominant
hemisphere is the one in
which the brain’s language
processes and the motor
capacities that facilitate
speech reside.

20. Linkage For Life
BRAIN DOMINANCE
Unilateral Cerebral Dominance
• "Most people develop
unilateral cerebral dominance
- that is their dominant eye, ear,
hand and leg are on the same
side of the body."
• Test yourself now: check your
eyes & ears to see which, if
either, is stronger; think about
which foot you kick with or
put in your pants 1st.

21. Linkage For Life
BRAIN CROSS-DOMINANCE
• Approximately 20% of the population has
mixed dominance or other irregularities in
the development of dominance.
• Immaturities and irregularities in
lateralization can cause perceptual &
cognitive problems in all areas of life –
stuttering, dyslexia, body clumsiness, etc.
• Just as X-Brain Dominance can make for
difficulties in learning it also appears to
make the person more creative and open to
doing things differently.

22. Linkage For Life X-Dominance & X-Cultures
Liability or Opportunity?
• Trying to live with two very different
cultures, West and East, in one person is
the equivalent to have X-Dominance in
your brain-body connections.
• I speculate we have a new sub-species
of humanity on its way: a “World
Citizen”.
• This person will be capable of
connecting both Left & Right Brains,
both West & East cultures, both
Scientific Cure & Artful Care.

23. Linkage For Life
Between the Devil & the Dragon
EAST
Dragon
• Nature outside
uncontrolled = nature
inside controlled by
outside Central Authority
• Scarcity creates family as
survival unit
• Emperor replaced by State
• Dragon is a human
pretending to be an animal
WEST
Devil
• Nature outside controlled =
individual freed from authority
& nature inside as beast/Id
• Abundance breeds isolated
individuals in Welfare State
playpen/prison/mental hospital
• Priest replaced by psychiatrist,
policeman, politician
• Devil is an animal pretending
to be human

24. Linkage For Life West=Male vs. East=Female
from Amaury deRiencourt’s Sex and Power in History
• Paleolithic males worshipped womanhood (Mother
Earth). At some point, men gradually substituted a
male god with a collapse of the cylical female cults.
• The male concept of linear history arose culminating
in the Greek rational thought which broke away from
magic thought processes. The Greeks gave greater
value to culture than to nature, to the abstract Idea
than to concrete Life itself.
• Greek society's psychological degradation of the
female principle was unknown in Eastern
civilizations where a somewhat harmonious balance
was obtained.

25. Linkage For Life
Reason-Death vs Life-Emotion
from Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West
• "Scientific worlds are superficial worlds, practical,
soulless...Life is no longer to be lived as something self
evident...but to be treated as a problem, judged by
'utilitarian' or 'rational' criteria.
• Culture-men [peasants] live unconsciously, Civilisation-
men [urban dwellers] consciously. Intelligence is the
replacement of unconscious living by exercise in thought,
masterly, but bloodless...thus the sterility of civilised man.
• The last man of the world-city no longer wants to live.”
• REMEMBER: The West has been “under-populated”
since the 1960s! Couples have careers not babies!

26. Linkage For Life West=Science & East=Art
WEST as Science
• What Joseph Needham,
the acclaimed British
scholar of Chinese
science & technology
called the “Big
Question” – why didn’t
the Chinese civilization
establish the scientific
method rather than the
West?
EAST as Art
• Aesthetic thought
characterizes Eastern
civilization. F.S.C. Northrop
claimed that Eastern
civilization has an “intuitive
aesthetic character”.
Recently, David Hall &
Roger Ames made the same
argument contrasting
China’s “aesthetic” with the
West’s “rational” order.

27. Linkage For Life
Etymology to Explain
• Science from the Latin
Scire “to know” which
comes from the Indo-
European root seq- that
means to “cut, separate,
divide, part”
• Keep this deep meaning
in mind when we
examine the cultural
dimensions of Western
civilization
• Art comes from the Latin
word artem, (nom. ars) "art,
skill, craft," from IE *ar-ti-
(cf. Skt. rtih "manner,
mode);" Gk. arti "just,"
artios "complete“.
• Thus art means to join,
connect, link, to bring
together parts to make
harmonious wholes: a
passable definition for the
creative arts.

28. Linkage For Life Western Medicine: Scientific Cure vs.
Eastern Medicine: Artful Care
• Two main divisions in medicine today, historically
unique due to the rise of Science in the West.
• Define Cure as the science of knowing or objective
reason – "aggressive medicine". It’s concerned with
scientifically objective methods of controlling or
removing physical disease or disorders to allow the
person a longer quantity of life.
• Define Care as the art of being or subjective meaning
– “passive medicine” or non-curative care. It’s
concerned with the person as a unique unit of
meaning and tries to manage the disease to allow the
person the best quality of life.

29. Linkage For Life
No Cutting! Please!
• "The honorable and upright man keeps well
away from both the slaughterhouse and the
kitchen. And he allows no knives on his
table." Kongzi (Confucius)
• Konzi equated knives with acts of
aggression, which went against his non-
violent teachings. Some experts credit his
influence with the widespread adoption of
chopsticks throughout China; culture (Wen)
had triumphed over the warrior lifestyle.

30. Linkage For Life
West=Surgery vs. East=TCM
• Surgery was not much
performed in China (you did
have ancient surgeons but
relatively few) until brought
in from the West with its
scientific medicine.
• Traditional Chinese
Medicine looks at the
“whole” person – and does
not “chop” him up!

31. Linkage For Life
East = Chopsticks/Kuaizi

32. Linkage For Life
West = Fork & Knife

33. Linkage For Life

34. Linkage For Life WEST & EAST—
Cultural-Civilizational Differences
Compare & contrast
• Western European Culture-Civilization
(mainly America but including other
English speaking nations); and
• Eastern Asian Culture-Civilization
(mainly China but including Korea &
Japan)
Until very recently assumed that if “dig
under” obvious cultural differences West
& East, find we all reason & perceive the
world more or less alike.

35. Linkage For Life
“Oh, East is East, and West is West,
And Never the Twain Shall Meet”?
But new research (gathered in
the book The Geography of
Thought (2003) by the
American psychologist
Richard Nisbett) shows East &
West perceive and know the
world in fundamentally
different ways!

36. Linkage For Life
West – East Differences To Be Pondered
• Patterns of attention and perception
• Basic assumptions about what the world is made of
• Beliefs about whether the environment can or should
be controlled
• Assumptions of stability vs change
• Preferred patterns of explanation for events
• Habits of organizing the world

37. Linkage For Life
ANALYTIC WEST vs HOLISTIC EAST
• Analytic--Taking
wholes apart to find
separate causes/effects
• Holistic—Leaving
wholes be and seeking
to harmonize the parts

38. Linkage For Life COGNITIVE-PERCEPTUAL
DIFFERENCES
WEST
• Attention on objects
• Attributes of things
• Abstract classification
according to fixed rules
• individual-class
categorization (objects,
properties, simplified
causality and
relationship)
EAST
• Attention on Context
• Processes of things
• Situational classification
according to concrete &
changing relationships
• part-whole categorization
(relationships, substances,
complexity)

39. Linkage For Life
COW
Which TWO go together?
• Chicken and Grass?
• Cow and Chicken?
• Grass and Cow?
CHICKEN
GRASS
East vs West
Do They Think & Perceive Differently?

40. Linkage For Life Perception West & East
Family or Rule Based Classifying?

41. Linkage For Life
West=Rule Based Classifying
East=Family Based Classifying

42. Linkage For Life
West=Eye Movements on Object
East=Eyes Movements on Context

43. Linkage For Life
Attention to Context/Field or
Attention to Object

44. Linkage For Life
West=Object Focused
East=Environment Focused

45. Linkage For Life
West: Yes OR No; East: Yes AND No
Experiment compared how Asian vs
Americans respond to “contrary
arguments”.
• West got more argumentative when
argued against.
• East got more accepting when argued
against.
Note: the word “science” means “to cut” –
East never developed science nor
practiced surgery

46. Linkage For Life
Field Independence=West
Field Dependence=East
• The Field Dependent (FD) person processes
information globally, less analytical, not attentive
to detail, and sees the perceptual field as a whole.
This whole resists analysis or being taken apart.
• The Field Independent (FI) person easily breaks
the field down into its component parts & not
influenced by the existing context – thus can make
choices independent of the perceptual field.
• FDs are more socially oriented, respond more to
reward & punishment, & less able to analyze.

47. Linkage For Life West=Field Independence
East=Field Dependence

48. Linkage For Life West=FI & East=FD

49. Linkage For Life FIELD INDEPENDENCE-DEPENDENCE
WEST- Hunting
• Field Independent
• In hunting it is either you or
the animal that will die.
This gave rise to the notion
of duality. Hunting is risky.
One has to take charge and
distinguish oneself. It
favours a competitive
approach. In Hunting
societies, accent was on
autonomy & individualism.
EAST – Farming
• Field Dependent
• In agrarian cultures it’s
important to move with the
cycle of time, to be in tune
with your surroundings.
Suppression of individual
impulses was required.
Planting cultures generate
notions of interrelated,
interconnected people living
in harmony with nature.

50. Linkage For Life
WEST – Individualist
• The individual identifies primarily
with himself.
• Needs of the individual satisfied
before those of the group.
• Looking after and taking care of
oneself, being self-sufficient.
• Independence and self-reliance
stressed and valued.
Eric Hoffer

51. Linkage For Life
EAST – Collectivist
• Identity comes from membership and
role in a group such as the family or
schoolmates.
• Survival of group = well-being of the
individual.
• By considering the needs and feelings of
others, one protects oneself.
• Harmony and interdependence of group
members stressed and valued.

52. Linkage For Life
Individualism –
Hofstede’s
Dimension
• Individualism (IDV)
degree the society
reinforces individual
or collective
achievement and
interpersonal
relationships.
• Measure “high” or
“low”.

53. Linkage For Life
Exercise: Collectivist or Individualist?
You and the three other people have been working
on an important special project. Work is done and
the four of you have been awarded a cash prize of
$20,000.
• Person A did 25% of the work.
• Person B did 40% of the work.
• Person C did 25% of the work.
• Person D did 10% of the work.
How would you split up the rewards?

54. Linkage For Life
Collectivist vs Individualist
Answers
COLLECTIVIST
• Person A: $5000
• Person B: $5000
• Person C: $5000
• Person D: $5000
INDIVIDUALIST
• Person A: $5000 (25%)
• Person B: $8000 (40%)
• Person C: $5000 (25%)
• Person D: $2000 (10%)

55. Linkage For Life
West=Internal Control vs.
East=External Control
Relations with Nature
• Every culture evolved an attitude
towards the nature. How we relate to our
environment is linked to how we desire
to have control over our own our lives.

56. Linkage For Life
West=Internalistic & East=Externalistic
• Internalistic people see nature as a complex machine
and machines can be controlled if you have the right
expertise. They do not believe in luck or
predestination – they are inner-directed. They live the
way they want. Man can & must dominate nature.
• Externalistic people have a more organic view of
nature. Mankind should operate in harmony with the
environment. They do not believe that they can shape
their own destiny. 'Nature moves in mysterious ways',
The actions of externalistic people are 'outer-directed'
- adapted to external circumstances.

57. Linkage For Life
Internalistic or Externalistic?
A research project gave the following set of questions to
groups of American and Chinese university students
and asked them to choose which one (A or B) of the
following two statements they most agreed with:
• A. What happens to me is my own doing.
• B. Sometimes I feel I don’t have control over the
direction my life is taking.

58. Linkage For Life
West=Internalistic & East=Externalistic
• Here was the result:
• Percentage of Americans who chose A
= 89%. Percentage of Chinese who
chose A = 35% .
• Does this result seem right to you?
Which one would you choose?

59. Linkage For Life
West=Emotion Expression vs.
East=Emotion Suppression
• In WESTERN Emotion
Expressed (EE) cultures people
do not object to a display of
emotions.
• It isn't considered necessary to
hide feelings and to keep them
inside.
• EE cultures may interpret the
less explicit signals of an ES
culture as less important.

60. Linkage For Life
West=Emotion Expression vs.
East=Emotion Suppression
• In EASTERN Emotion
Suppressed (ES) culture people
are taught that it is incorrect to
show one's feelings overtly.
• Doesn't mean they do not have
feelings, it just means that the
degree to which feeling may
become manifest is limited.
• They accept and are aware of
feelings, but are in control of them.

61. Linkage For Life W vs. E:
Learning What Feelings to Desire
• Individualistic cultures (American) encourage their
members to influence others (i.e., assert personal
needs and change others’ behaviors to fit those
needs) - value high arousal positive states [HAP]
• Collectivistic cultures (China) encourage their
members to adjust to others (i.e., suppress personal
needs in order to accommodate others’ needs) - value
low arousal positive states [LAP]
• European American preschoolers preferred excited
(vs. calm) states more (indexed by activity and smile
preferences) and perceived excited (vs. calm) states
as happier than Taiwanese Chinese preschoolers.

62. Linkage For Life West vs. East: Reading Faces Differently
• Culture determines whether we look at the eyes or the
mouth to interpret facial expressions, says new study.
• In Japan people tend to look to the eyes for emotional
cues, whereas Americans tend to look to the mouth,
says researcher Masaki Yuki, a behavioral scientist at
Hokkaido University in Japan.
• Japanese try to suppress their emotions more than
Americans do, he said.
• Eyes are more difficult to control than the mouth,
thus provide better clues about a person’s emotional
state even if he or she is trying to hide it.

63. Linkage For Life
Emotion Expression;
West=Mouth vs. East=Eyes
• Culture influences facial emotions.
• Research shows that in cultures where emotional
control is the standard, such as Japan, focus is placed
on the eyes to interpret emotions.
• Cultures where emotion is openly expressed, such as
the United States, the focus is on the mouth to
interpret emotion (Note: emoticons called “Smilies”)
• American emoticons : ) and : - ) denote a happy face,
whereas the emoticons :( or : - ( denote a sad face.
• Japanese tend to use the symbol (^_^) to indicate a
happy face, and (;_;) to indicate a sad face.

64. Linkage For Life
West Big Mouths vs. East Big Eyes

65. Linkage For Life
W vs. E in Sleeping Alone or Together
• Almost all cultures babies sleep with an adult & older
children sleep with parents or other siblings.
• Only in industrialized Western societies such as those
in North America and some parts of Europe that sleep
has become a private affair.
• Mayan mothers told how babies were put to bed in
the US – shocked, highly disapproved, expressed pity
for the American babies who had to sleep alone.
• American mothers found this attachment worrisome
& emotionally or psychologically unhealthy. Moved
babies out of the parental room usually by six months

66. Linkage For Life
LEFT BRAIN WEST
• Low Context (EH)
• Low Power
Distance (H)
• High
Individualism (H)
• Low Long-Term
Orientation (H)
• Universalism (T-T)
• Achievement (T-T)
• Sequential (T-T)
• Internal Control
(T-T)
RIGHT BRAIN EAST
• High Context (EH)
• High Power
Distance (H)
• Low Individualism
(H)
• High Long-Term
Orientation (H)
• Particularism (T-T)
• Ascription (T-T)
• Synchronic (T-T)
• External Control
(T-T)
Geert Hostede’s (H) & Frons Trompenaars-
Charles Hampden-Turner’s (T-T) & Edward Hall’s
(EH) Cultural Comparison Dimensions

67. Linkage For Life
A Whole New Mind–
China’s Right Brain Opportunity
The American author Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole
New Mind”
• Agricultural Age (farmers)
• Industrial Age (factory workers)
• Information Age (knowledge workers)
• Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers)
• The fourth stage is where Pink focuses and how
businesses can be successful.

68. Linkage For Life
The 3 A’s of Advanced Economies
It speculates that for the advanced Western economies
the shift has moved from dominance on left brain
abilities to right brain abilities because of three
things:
• --Abundance
• --Asia
• --Automation

69. Linkage For Life
6 New Economy Areas
for Competitive Edge
1. Design - Moving beyond function to engage the
sense.
2. Story - Narrative added to products and services - not
just argument.
3. Symphony - Adding invention and big picture
thinking (not just detail focus).
4. Empathy - Going beyond logic and engaging emotion
and intuition.
5. Play - Bringing humor and light-heartedness to
business and products.
6. Meaning - Immaterial feelings and values of
products.

70. Linkage For Life
Get a “MFA” Rather than an MBA
• Masters of Fine Arts – its about DESIGN!
• It’s about ESTHETICS, BEAUTY, ART!
• Notice how mobile phones are becoming art objects?
• Once utility/performance is reached via the Left
Brain Science the consumer need “flips” to the Right
Brain need for Art.
• China is a “Field Dependent”, “Right Brain” culture
and its culture is “right” for the times!
• So you students out there, think about an MFA!

71. Linkage For Life
THE END
Best of luck with your academic studies
and your first career efforts!
Remember, when dealing with another
culture, it is just as important to ask:
• “What’s my head within”?
As it is:
• “What’s within my head”?