quiet-the-power-of-introverts-in-a-world-that-cant-stop-talking-susan-cain

he wonders why, exactly, he should
have to work so hard at being outgoing.
Don is Chinese-American, and recently
he worked a summer job in China. He
was struck by how different the social
norms were, and how much more comfortable
he felt. In China there was
more emphasis on listening, on asking
questions rather than holding forth, on
putting others’ needs first. In the United
States, he feels, conversation is about
how effective you are at turning your
experiences into stories, whereas a
Chinese person might be concerned
with taking up too much of the other
person’s time with inconsequential
information.
“That summer, I said to myself, ‘Now
I know why these are my people,’ ” he
says.
But that was China, this is Cambridge,
Massachusetts. And if one
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