East meets West, Technology vs Creativity, Can One Live without the Other?

Well., I decided to give you all a lesson - or shall I say - my thoughts on two very different cultures. We, as westerners are of an individualist culture. Meaning, we think for ourselves, and act upon our own thoughts. Asians are a collective culture, which means they act upon what the collective determines to be the best for all. So, having said all that, I have observed something very interesting. We as westerners tend to express ourselves from thoughts and ideas we generate from within. Asians, however, express and reproduce what is already there. And they do a splendid job of this reproduction!  At my professional development sessions this week, we are having the teachers recreate the books I have in the ' library' I am building. By doing this, they will all have a copy of sorts in their clusters and schools. The videos we made from this exercise are hysterical. The drawings each teacher produced were profound!  Now I know that artists are developed through practice. We in the western world tend to encourage young budding artists to draw willy nilly - expressing themselves through this medium. Asian cultures tend to use self discipline and self control to do the same. As I see it, the Asians appear to be winning - with the number of talented artists everywhere. But are they artists, or are they reproducers? you know - the ones that copy famous artists?  Does it really matter? Can you reproduce a master's work? I know I cannot.  Every one of these teachers produced an almost mirror of the drawings in the books. I know they did not trace - I watched them draw. Besides, the images they made were a bit larger than the book images. So, what does this tell me?  Asians, which we already know are technically superior to westerners. That is not a bad thing - we are creatively superior to them. With the two strengths we build incredible tools to share.  And that has been proven over and over again. A marvelous invention created by a western mind becomes a reproduction from asia in no time at all. Everyone can access these because there tends to be varying levels of the reproduction; making it affordable according to the choice of the end product.

Maybe all should be left as it is - I think these talents are part of ones being. There are western artists and there are eastern inventors. But if you look back in history - neither is a common occurance. Yes, I think it is inherent, but also cultural. We as westerners tend to encourage individualism in expression. Doing this, we are encouraging imagination, invention, and self expression.  Asians, as a culture encourage self control, collective beliefs, and reproducing and maintaining what is there already. Taking that posture, they churn out technological wizards and reproducers that we will not match in our own society. Both are needed.  I will post a picture soon of the teacher reproductions of the books so you can see for yourselves.  They are teachers through educational pursuits - the skill of technological reproduction seems inherent.