The Girl at the Baggage Claim

Explaining the East-West Culture Gap

By: Gish Jen

Narrated by: Caroline McLaughlin

The Girl at the Baggage Claim is a provocative and important study of the different ideas easterners and westerners have about the self and society and what this means for current debates in art, education, geopolitics, and business.

Never have East and West come as close as they are today, yet we are still baffled by one another. Is our mantra "To thine own self be true"? Or do we believe we belong to something larger than ourselves - a family, a religion, a troop - that claims our first allegiance? Gish Jen - drawing on a treasure trove of stories and personal anecdotes, as well as cutting-edge research in cultural psychology - reveals how this difference shapes what we perceive and remember, what we say and do and make - how it shapes everything from our ideas about copying and talking in class to the difference between Apple and Alibaba. As engaging as it is illuminating, this is a book that stands to profoundly enrich our understanding of ourselves and of our world.

©2017 Gish Jen (P)2017 Tantor

Interesting & thought-provoking essay, robotic narrator

The playful comparison of individualism to “avocado pit selves” and to people with “big avocado pits” helps a western audience lower our guard and accept that our love of individualism sometimes leads to ludicrous outcomes. The discussion is easy to follow and thought-provoking. But…

I agree with a previous reviewer who said the narrator is robotic. She has minimal inflection, even when asking and answering questions. Lots of long pauses in awkward places.

Terrible narration - interesting content

The narration is one of the worst I have heard on Audible yet. Because there are strange pauses throughout the text and the intonation doesn't seem to match the content at times, it has been difficult for me to follow the logic of the text. I slowed down the narration to try to blur the odd pauses that segment the paragraphs in very strange ways, and that has helped a little. The narrator speeds through the text at times really fast and then stops and leaves long pauses, but not at points that would make sense. The content is interesting, the author backs up some arguments effectively with research about individualistic and collectivistic cultures.

Robotic narrator

This narrator sounds like a computer voice. There are many awkward pauses and she mispronounced many simple words.

Provocative

Interesting dissertation. Many conclusions ring true and need more exploration and discussion. A brave effort to take on this subject when Asian America is at its most diverse. Will get pdf and listen again