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LECTURE|“Rice Theory: From Kindergarten to University” lecture sucessfuly held

Release Date:2019-09-12   Source:  Number of hits:

On Sept. 11, Thomas Talhelm, associate professor from the University of Chicago Booth School of Bussiness was invited to deliver a lecture named Rice Theory From Kindergarten to University. The lecture was so welcomed as empty seats were nowhere in sight. The lecture was held by SPSPA and moderated by Prof. Ma Ben.

What influence did rice and wheat impose on regional culture and can this effect be eliminated through modernization? Why traditional rice is much more modern than people normally think? To answer these questions, Thomas Talhelm described two drastically contrasting experiences in Guangzhou and Harbin when he first came to China. Then he followed up with a question: Why the Cantonese deliberately avoid conflicts. while Harbin people do not? Starting from this difference between North and South China, Thomas found that in terms of food crops, rice in the South and wheat in the North, he attempted to explain this phenomenon through cultural differences using the analogy of “Rice vs Wheat”.

Next, Prof. Thomas demonstrated to the audience the mechanisms through which rice cultivation influences regional culture, and then the difference of effect these two crops take on to cultures in terms of thinking, customs as well as divorce rate. To verify this, Thomas resorted to Starbucks coffee as the testing venue, a common public place found in both the north and south, as an experimental and observation site, and observed whether targets tend to sit alone, or whether they moved the chairs getting in the way and whether they occupy more public space. The result turned out that customers in the South are more inclined to collectivism.

Subsequently, in order to explain the Rice Theory in a more scientific way, Prof. Thomas took the positive relationship between culture and GDP in Modernization Theory, combined with a large amount of experimental data from China, India, Japan and other regions to demonstrate the lacunae left in Modernization Theory: is the influence imposed by individualism in GDP only a statistical chance? In accordance with this new theoretical perspective, he presented the worthiness of studying Rice Theory from the perspective of cultural differences, which brought much insight to the audiences.

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