Yesterday, I asked which is more dangerous: a tiger or the jungle. The question was aimed at helping people see the world from a different perspective.
In this same spirit, I'd like to ask what you see in the photo to the right.
If you're a Westerner you'd likely say "There's a fly in my soup." If, however, you are Japanese you'd respond, "My soup has a fly in it."
I have been told that in Japanese culture people generally speak from the large (i.e. soup) to the small (i.e. fly) but in Western cultures people tend to speak from the small (fly) to the large (soup). (More broadly speaking in the West the emphasis is on the individual, while in the East the focus is on the community.)
Again, there is no right or wrong answer … just a reminder that the world is not always as straightforward as it might appear.
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