And I'm Fairly Indifferent to Martial Arts

More quotes from the book:

While China had some extroverts, like Deqing, introversion was the masculine ideal. You could guess who was the most powerful man at any banquet in China by seeing who talked the least. Unlike in America, where having power means everyone else has to politely listen to your blather, in China power means those lower on the totem pole play the clown while you observe the patterns.

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And then Deputy Leader Jiao said something I'll never forget, because it perfectly encapsulated the difference between our two countries: "Of course, it's that much. America is so wealthy the poor people are fatter than the rich."

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"A club hurts the flesh, but evil words hurt the bone."

- Traditional Chinese Proverb

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It is difficult for my fellow countrymen who have never lived abroad to understand that until a foreign man is about sixty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he'd like to punch an American in the face. Even people like the Chinese, who mostly like us, think of us--at least partly--as loud, fat, poorly dressed, overprivileged, hectoring, naive, arrogant, self-righteous bullies with little knowledge and no interest in any culture other than our own. I once had a conversation with a Japanese journalist who said to me, "You don't seem like an American." When I asked him, slightly hurt, why he said that, he replied, "Because you listen."

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What does it feel like to hit another man so hard you knock him out? It feels like Christmastime. The joy was so pure, so primal I felt like I was glowing. Male violence isn't an aberration; we are hardwired to enjoy it.

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About a wacky Finn who came to the temple:

"I was meditating and went to this deep place. And the train car opened up around me. The clouds parted and Odin and Thor descended into my cabin. Do you know them?"

Somehow I managed to keep a straight face.

"Not personally, no," I said.

"Odin is the one-eyed leader of the Norse pantheon. Thor is the god of thunder."

"Right, I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid."

"I told them about the sixth race that is coming. And they thought it was really important, so they agreed to join their energies to the project."

"You told them about the sixth race and then recruited them? Odin and Thor?"

"Yes."

I learned far more about world religions and mythology by reading Dieties and Demigods than anything we studied in school.