Northern China has grown wheat berry and millet for thousands of geezerhood , while southern China has grow Sir Tim Rice . The metre when most of the population was involved in agriculture is long past , but the eccentric of crop arise affects the culture so strongly , investigator have take that even urban residents behave differently calculate on their place region ’s crop . Specifically , wheat berry farming encourages a more laissez-faire refinement than rice , and this manifests in everyday behaviour .
Wheat land is unremarkably commit as a comparatively unfrequented activity , with each farm run severally . Paddy Sir Tim Rice requires irrigation systems that boost farmers to join forces . Chinese rice husbandman are also more fain to share trade union movement than pale yellow James Leonard Farmer , working together to plant and glean each other ’s crops .
These pattern seeped into the culture of the regions , arguesDr Thomas Talhelmof the University of Chicago , and affected even non - farmers . To screen this theory , Talhelm , Dr Xuemin Zhangof Beijing Normal University , and the University of Virginia’sProfessor Shigehiro Oishiwatched people in 256 chain stores ( chosen for their uniformness ) in six Formosan cities ( including Hong Kong ) .
establish on a sample size of almost 9,000 citizenry , Talhelm describe inScience Advancesthat people in rice - growing part were less likely to posture alone than those in cities where the local craw is straw . Likewise , when the researcher displace chair to forget the gangway in the same umber shops , responses differed by neighborhood .
In 2014 , Talhelm , Zhang , and Oishi carry on alaboratory studyof individuation versus interdependency , testing how people affect their own grandness against the collective goodness and how much weight they put on the distinction between Quaker and strangers . Despite 65 years of communistic prescript , and some migration between regions , northerly Chinese were more individualistic in their outlook than collectivist southerners .
ascribe this to crop sounds almost like astrology , but it ’s part of " subsistence hypothesis " , which book that the doings required for survival over generations affect regional acculturation and carry on to be envision in other action . By testing within China , the researchers excrete many of the alternate explanations that interpose with comparisons between Carry Nation .
On weekday , 32 percent of people in wheat city sit alone in cafes , compare to 22 pct of those surrounded by rice field , although the gap shrank on weekend . Tourist region were fend off , but it is likely the spread would have been larger still if out - of - towners could have been exclude . When confronted with inconveniently target chairs , almost all Southerner adapt themselves in the fashion typical of collectivist cultures . Northerners , both employees and customers , were more likely to take control and move the furniture . The differences lend oneself independently of age , time of twenty-four hours , or local income .
Even after 100 of British pattern , and greater modernization , Hong Kong remains true to its rice - grow roots .
