When I was studying at Yale, some phenomena puzzled me greatly. I found that Chinese students or Asian students were very polite in class while American students often interrupted the professor, asking questions and dominating the discussion. The Chinese students were not as aggressive as American students.　　I was impressed by the role of the professor in the seminar(讨论会). The professor didn’t act as an authority, giving final conclusions, but as a researcher looking for answers to questions together with the students. One linguistic(语言的) feature of his interacting with his students was that he used many modal(情态的) verbs―far more than I did in Beiwai. When answering questions, he usually said, “This is my personal opinion and it could be wrong.” or “You could be right, but you might find this point of view also interesting.”　　In China, authorities are always supposed to give wise decisions and correct directions. Therefore, students always expect the professor to give an answer to the question. I still reme