[Ibby]

From where I live, from what I've seen, from where I've been, I'm gonna say, I don't agree with ahnuld.

Instead, I feel that for the most part, euroameriaustraiicapea... er, europe and america (and austrailia, which is prettymuch europe to us yanks) have that innovative, open-minded achieving advancing society, wheras asian societies do not.

Obviously being american growing up in asia I'm gonna see most things in terms of the west vs the east, but I think that the difference in drive and spirit between america and europe is negligible compared to the difference between the west and asia.

I have actually had japanese friends of mine quote at me, 'the tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut' or some paraphrasing of that sentiment. I have actually had korean friends of mine tell me not to do things so I won't stand out so much (i guess those koreans don't have as deeply developed metaphors as the japanese do). I sense no drive, no spirit, no revolutionary or independent or out-of-the-box mindset among most of my asian peers at my school. There is an intense drive to succeed - much more than in the west, in fact - but success becomes, to them, getting a 4.+ GPA and going to become a doctor or lawyer or business executive, and theyre all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just th-what now? oh, right.. success becomes just fitting in and doing your job and doing your work and doing your part and not sticking your head up lest you hit it on something. That's why I'm having trouble starting this paper, even after getting the administration to green-light the project. There's no spirit for it here. And the same spirit drives any kind of change, be it social change or political change or scientific change or economic change or... any kind.

It's not US-vs.-Europe, it's west-vs.-east. It really is.