When I was living in China, I learned to make things hyper-explicit because often they were being read by people whose command of English kept them from picking up what I thought were obvious signals.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of clear communication, especially in a multicultural context where language barriers exist.
James Fallows reflects on his experience living in China, highlighting the need for hyper-explicit communication when speaking or writing in English to individuals who may not fully grasp the language. This underscores the idea that assumptions about shared understanding can lead to miscommunication, particularly when cultural and linguistic differences are present. By making messages clearer, one can ensure better comprehension and avoid misunderstandings.
In practice
In a multicultural team meeting, I used this quote to stress the importance of clear communication.
For the record, I am sticking with my claim that the simultaneous degradation of air quality, water quality, water supply, food safety, soil quality, and other environment-related variables is the main challenge to China's continued development.
Children must receive music instruction as naturally as food, with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game, and this must happen from the beginning of their lives.
I remember going to university, and the people who'd left home for the first time looked at the food and were horrified. Whereas, my view was that if it was vaguely edible, then it's fine.
I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words.
Although simulators are great for building step-by-step knowledge of a procedure, the worst thing that can happen in a sim is that you get a bad grade on your performance.
One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.
If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.
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