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Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication.

You don't know what the Chinese expect in the way of beauty. The presentation is just a farce. You come into a room filled with 50 people and they don't talk to you. There's very little interaction.

I find when you talk with the Chinese on most subjects, they are very practical.

In Chinese culture, it wouldn't occur to kids to question or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows and movies constantly score points with their snappy back talk. Typically, it's the parents who need to be taught a life lesson - by their children.

There's a real difference of what one believed was one's chief responsibility between American professors and Chinese professors. This was vividly revealed to me when I compared what I could learn in Chicago and what I could learn in China.

My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner.

For years now, Chinese parents and teachers have lamented what's known as the 'xiao huangdi' - or little emperor - phenomenon, a generation of pampered and entitled children who believe they sit at the center of the social universe because that's exactly how they've been treated.

There are two types of Chinese growing up in America. One is the kind that does really well in school, with thick, thick glasses. And the other is involved with the gangs.

My children speak very good Chinese, and they translate for our American friends.

I haven't been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I'm not silent.