> So I bought a heart rate monitor and checked my resting heart rate. Right around 78. And when the professor said to me in class “Puzhong, I can see that story brought up some emotions in you,” I rolled up my sleeve and checked my heart rate. It was about 77. And so I said, “nope, no emotion.” The experiment seemed to confirm my prior belief: my heart rate hardly moved, even when I was criticized, though it did jump when I became excited or laughed.

Yikes.

> In Communist China, I was taught that hard work would bring success. In the land of the American dream, I learned that success comes through good luck, the right slogans, and monitoring your own—and others’—emotions.

I don't understand the value of this analogy. In Communist China, I was taught (something that is done to you) something false, but in the U.S. I learned (note: not taught, learned) something X.

Is it true or false? Because it matters whether or not something is true or false. I'm sure the author thinks what he is writing is true, otherwise, why write it? But he just directly compared something he decided on his own to something he was taught to be true that was actually false. This is really murky, and I don't care enough about his feelings about Cambridge or Stanford or Costco to try to make any more sense of it.