Economist, May 10, 2014 (III)

choi

Culture and psychology | You Are What You Eat. Or, rather, what you grow to eat.
www.economist.com/news/science-a ... ou-are-what-you-eat

the first three paragraphs:

“THAT orientals and occidentals think in different ways is not mere prejudice. * * * Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain this.
“One, that modernisation promotes individualism, falls at the first hurdle: Japan, an ultra-modern country whose people have retained a collective outlook. A second, that a higher prevalence of infectious disease in a place makes contact with strangers more dangerous, and causes groups to turn inward, is hardly better. Europe has had its share of plagues; probably more that either Japan or Korea. And though southern China is notoriously a source of infection (influenza pandemics often start there), this is not true of other parts of that enormous country.

“That led Thomas Talhelm of the University of Virginia and his colleagues to look into a third suggestion: that the crucial difference is agricultural. The West’s staple is wheat; the East’s, rice. * * *

My comment:
(a) I brought to your attention the Nature paper on May 10, 2014 in the posting titled “China <-> Europe.”
(b) There is no need to read the rest.