阅读理解
We are all conditioned by the way we are brought up. Our values are determined by our parents, and in a larger sense, by the culture in which we live. The Chinese, for example, are not accustomed to the drinking of milk, and may actually become sick if they are compelled to drink a glassful of the beverage. Americans, on the other hand, thrive on milk, although they have many taboos of their own.
Some years ago I gave a dinner party during which I served a delicious hors d''oeuvre filled with a meat that tasted somewhat like chicken. My guests wondered what the meat was, but I refused to tell them until they had eaten their fill. I then explained that they had just dined on the flesh of freshly killed rattlesnake. The reaction was nausea--and in some cases violent vomiting. If I had served rattlesnake to a Chinese, he would doubtless had requested a second helping, for in China the dish is considered a delicacy.
Another interesting case is the young man I met recently in New York City. An American by birth, he had been removed from his native state of Oregon at the age of six months when his parents went to Japan as missionaries. Orphaned before his first birthday, he was reared by a Japanese family in a remote village. The young man was unmistakably American in appearance, with blond hair and blue eyes. But he had a Japanese style of walking, Japanese facial expressions, and he thought like a Japanese. Though he had learned to speak English fluently, he felt uncomfortable and nut of place in an American city. He soon returned to Japan.