Passages
Direction for Reading Comprehension: For two years, I tracked down dozens of . . . Chinese in Upper Egypt [who were] selling lingerie. In a deeply conservative region, where Egyptian families rarely allow women to work or own businesses, the Chinese flourished because of their status as outsiders. They didn’t gossip, and they kept their opinions to themselves. In a New Yorker article entitled “Learning to Speak Lingerie,” I described the Chinese use of Arabic as another non-threatening characteristic. I wrote, “Unlike Mandarin, Arabic is inflected for gender, and Chinese dealers, who learn the language strictly by ear, often pick up speech patterns from female customers. I’ve come to think of it as the lingerie dialect, and there’s something disarming about these Chinese men speaking in the feminine voice.” . . .
When I wrote about the Chinese in the New Yorker, most readers seemed to appreciate the unusual perspective. But as I often find with topics that involve the Middle East, some people had trouble getting past the black-and-white quality of a byline. “This piece is so orientalist I don’t know what to do,” Aisha Gani, a reporter who worked at The Guardian, tweeted. Another colleague at the British paper, Iman Amrani, agreed: “I wouldn’t have minded an article on the subject written by an Egyptian woman—probably would have had a better insight.” . . .
As a MOL (man of language), I also take issue with this kind of essentialism. Empathy and understanding are not inherited traits, and they are not strictly tied to gender and race. An individual who wrestles with a difficult language can learn to be more sympathetic to outsiders and open to different experiences of the world. This learning process—the embarrassments, the frustrations, the gradual sense of understanding and connection—is invariably transformative. In Upper Egypt, the Chinese experience of struggling to learn Arabic and local culture had made them much more thoughtful. In the same way, I was interested in their lives not because of some kind of voyeurism, but because I had also experienced Egypt and Arabic as an outsider. And both the Chinese and the Egyptians welcomed me because I spoke their languages. My identity as a white male was far less important than my ability to communicate.
And that easily lobbed word—“Orientalist”—hardly captures the complexity of our interactions. What exactly is the dynamic when a man from Missouri observes a Zhejiang native selling lingerie to an Upper Egyptian woman?. . If all of us now stand beside the same river, speaking in ways we all understand, who’s looking east and who’s looking west? Which way is Oriental?
For all of our current interests in identity politics, there’s no corresponding sense of identity linguistics. You are what you speak—the words that run throughout your mind are at least as fundamental to your selfhood as is your ethnicity or your gender. And sometimes it’s healthy to consider human characteristics that are not inborn, rigid, and outwardly defined. After all, you can always learn another language and change who you are.
Question for CAT 2019 Reading Comprehension Questions- 5
Try yourself:Which of the following can be inferred from the author’s claim, “Which way is Oriental?”
Explanation
"And that easily lobbed word—“Orientalist”—hardly captures the complexity of our interactions. What exactly is the dynamic when a man from Missouri observes a Zhejiang native selling lingerie to an Upper Egyptian woman?. . If all of us now stand beside the same river, speaking in ways we all understand, who’s looking east and who’s looking west? Which way is Oriental?"
From the above passage, it is clear that the author considers the word Orientalist an easily lobbied word that does not capture the complex nature of interactions between people of different cultures. The author is of the opinion that if people in different parts of the world all speak in tongues that all of them understand, then the east-west divide would be broken.
The author is of the opinion that learning new languages would help bridge the east-west divide. There is no information provided in the passage that globalization has enabled people to learn more languages and thereby mitigated cultural hierarchies and barriers. Hence, option A is incorrect.
Option B is incorrect. The author never makes the claim that Orientalism has disappeared for the most part.
The author makes no claim about goodwill. Hence option C is incorrect.
Option D correctly encapsulates the arguments made by the author. Hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT 2019 Reading Comprehension Questions- 5
Try yourself:A French ethnographer decides to study the culture of a Nigerian tribe. Which of the following is most likely to be the view of the author of the passage?
Explanation
The author is of the opinion that learning the language of local cultures would help bridge cultural barriers.
Option D is against the author's point of view. Hence it is definitely incorrect.
Option A is incorrect. The author is of the opinion that the ability to communicate is far more important than the racial divide between two people. Hence it is unlikely to be the view of the author.
Option C is incorrect as the author, in the passage is much more concerned about the ability to communicate the racial and gender identity of the person.
Option B falls in line with the viewpoint of the author. Hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT 2019 Reading Comprehension Questions- 5
Try yourself:According to the passage, which of the following is not responsible for language’s ability to change us?
Explanation
" This learning process—the embarrassments, the frustrations, the gradual sense of understanding and connection—is invariably transformative." From this sentence, option A can be inferred. Hence it is incorrect.
" After all, you can always learn another language and change who you are." From this line, option B can be inferred. Hence it is incorrect.
"You are what you speak—the words that run throughout your mind are at least as fundamental to your selfhood as is your ethnicity or your gender" From this option D can be inferred. Hence it is incorrect.
The author makes no mention of the inherent ability of language to evolve over time to change a person. Hence, it is not responsible for language's ability to change us. Option C is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT 2019 Reading Comprehension Questions- 5
Try yourself:The author’s critics would argue that:
Explanation
The major idea put forth by the author is that cultural barriers can be broken down and an outsider can ingrain himself with the local culture by learning the language of the culture.
The author himself says that an individual who wrestles with a difficult language would learn to be more sympathetic to outsiders. He also says that empathy is not tied to gender and race, and therefore an individual who learns languages is usually empathetic to different races in the world. Thus option B can be inferred from the passage and is incorrect.
The passage makes no mention of linguistic politics. Also, he is of the opinion that a person's characteristics can be changed for the good by learning another language. Hence option C can be inferred from the author's argument and is incorrect.
The word orientalism itself means looking down upon middle eastern countries by the US and European countries. Hence, option D does not make sense.
Option A is directly in conflict with the author's main point and that would be the major criticism by the author's critics. Hence it is the correct answer.
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