Writing about writing

Learning about the cultural differences of written discourse last Friday is particularly enlightening for me for I have finally discovered why I never really fancied Chinese writing and why I always did badly for my Chinese essays! Here are my thoughts on why this so:

Firstly, having an explicit and direct mindset when comprehending Chinese writing prevents one from truly understanding the essence of the ideas presented. More often than not, an individual may become deluded (like myself) by the seemingly superficial ideas of the author when if further comprehension could have revealed a deeper layer of thought. Thus, sadly for me, this inability to see the deeper layers has eroded my interest in Chinese writing.

With regards to my disastrous performances in Chinese essay writing, I would attribute it (erroneously or not) to my habit of thinking in English and then directly translating the ideas into Chinese. This allowed the transference of English-writing style into my Chinese essays, which were in turn graded (and most likely not appreciated) by my teachers who were from China! Of course, this is mere speculation on my part. My essay scores could also be due to my ideas being of secondary quality.

With that, I would like to end off with another thought hanging in my head: Would written discourse be less subjected to culture-specific differences given that we are explicitly taught and exposed to different ways of writing by people (especially teachers) coming from all over the world? As opposed to our relative lack of direct exposure to and learning about spoken discourse in other cultures?