Gish Jen attempts to explain the East-West culture gap in The Girl at the Baggage Claim. Her explanation resolves to a different concept of self backed up and reinforced by the social systems their possessors are raised with. She calls the western self a “big pit” self, the reference here is an avocado with the I being a big distinct thing that is different for everyone. So your big pit of self is distinct and individual, craves recognition, and tends to examine things by breaking them into small pieces and seeing how those pieces work. She calls the eastern self a “flexi-self.” The flexi-self has more porous boundaries with other individuals, prizes the whole over the individual, looks at the whole picture and is more apt to find patterns and appreciate the impact of context. Jen looks at these two conceptions of self and how they interact with the world and with each other, finishing with a look at bicultural individuals who have both influences.
The book was an interesting read. It proposed a framework for understanding two different cultural conceptions of self. As with all things that attempt to universally address aspects of human behavior it doesn’t really succeed in making its case. It remains, however, an interesting take that I would recommend
