I found this interesting:

Wheat People vs. Rice People

Why Are Some Cultures More Individualistic Than Others?

... In May, the journal Science published a study, led by a young University of Virginia psychologist, Thomas Talhelm, that ascribed these different orientations to the social worlds created by wheat farming and rice farming. Rice is a finicky crop. Because rice paddies need standing water, they require complex irrigation systems that have to be built and drained each year. One farmer’s water use affects his neighbor’s yield. A community of rice farmers needs to work together in tightly integrated ways.

Not wheat farmers. Wheat needs only rainfall, not irrigation. To plant and harvest it takes half as much work as rice does, and substantially less coordination and cooperation. And historically, Europeans have been wheat farmers and Asians have grown rice. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/opini ... ef=general

Comment from article:

This idea was dealt with in depth in the 2003 book "The Geography of Thought: How Asians & Westerners Think Differently...& Why" by American psychologist Richard Nisbett.

The only thing new here is the comparative study of Han wheat farming culture vs. Han rice farming culture.

So why was no credit given here to Nisbett's published research? It wasn't obscure.

One test Nisbett used that's not mentioned here is showing people 3 drawings--cow, grass, bird--& asking viewers to discard one. Nisbett says 80% of Chinese discard the bird, while 80% of Americans discard the grass. I've validated this on many people--including immigrant Chinese neighbors here in Silicon Valley.

I've noted that the Chinese I've tested are generally boggled at the idea that there could be any other answer.

Regarding Donald Seekin's comment, social science studies like these are squishy compared to the "hard" sciences. But they can be quite useful as long as we treat the answers as revealing tendencies rather than hard and fast universals.

As someone with a degree in sociology, I've found many engineer types here in the Valley tend to dismiss anything that isn't as certain as what they deal with. It's dimorphic thinking, which is actually unscientific.

Also, I've traveled in Asian rice farming areas & know many European immigrants & have found that this article's thesis rings true. I've even heard that Asians sometimes mistake Western movies' individualistic heroes for the villain (!).

Fascinating!

In China, the northern people look down on those in the south- they call them rice eating monkeys.

Noodles vs rice, or the north/south divide. Are Asians who traditionally eat noodles more individualistic than rice eaters ?

And I'll look up Nisbett - thx Milord.

I was thinking of telling a dumb joke about maize and wheat. But you'll be pleased to know I decided not to, it was just way too corny…

Oh dear. Haha.

North may hate South, but HK hates them all.

Anyhow, I'm allergic to rice.

I'm basmatic….

I guess some of us are old enough to remember the AMP - Asian Mode of Production. Based on a number of remarks and comments by Marx/Engels writer influenced by Marxist thinking speculated about the existence of this mode. This was relevant as it could suggest that the classic Marxist idea about the development of society towards socialism was not universal and that Asia could do it differently. In other words, they challenged the dominance of the USSR and its party.
An author working on China and renegade, August Wittfogel, became in the 1950s very popular when he developed or, better, re-formulated age old propaganda claims about Oriental Despotism. It was a handy propaganda tool, void of any scholarly substance, in the hands of the far-right.
The wheat-rice discussion was part of these efforts and actually a foundation. Maybe there is a need to wipe the dust from the cold war skeletons.

Milord wrote:
One test Nisbett used that's not mentioned here is showing people 3 drawings--cow, grass, bird--& asking viewers to discard one. Nisbett says 80% of Chinese discard the bird, while 80% of Americans discard the grass. I've validated this on many people--including immigrant Chinese neighbors here in Silicon Valley.

I choose cow.... but I'm European