Introduction

East Asians typically prefer social cohesion and harmony, rather than self-expression and individualism. Rice farming is associated with cultural tightness worldwide and within China. High school students from rice grown counties tend to think more holistically. This theory also holds up for 1900 USA. In environments that reward coordination, people may teach their children to conform. And even after millennia of cultural evolution, nothing is set in stone. It is continually contested, as I will demonstrate in the case of South Korea.