A cow, a chicken, and some grass

"I want to do a little test on you GB," says boyfriend T, while we were on holiday in Greece recently, and eating our evening meal in one of the local restaurants.

"Uh huh?" I ask, taking a sip of wine, "it's not going to hurt is it??"

"No," laughs boyfriend T, "it's quite painless! There's a cow, a chicken and some grass. You just have to tell me, if you were to partition them so that two of them are in one group and the other is on its own, what's your first instinct on how to do it?"

[If anyone wants to play, make your choice now before reading on!]


"Um, cow with chicken, and the grass on its own I guess," I reply, without giving it too much thought.

"WOW, so he's right!" exclaims boyfriend T in a very excitable voice, "I didn't believe it when I read it but he's right!"

"What on earth are you talking about," I ask him, feeling a bit like some laboratory rat who's just confirmed some elaborate behavioural science theory for their researcher, "and what's your answer anyway?"

"First tell me why you chose cow with chicken?"

"Well because they're both animals," I reply, now mildly curious at what's behind boyfriend T's reaction, "and grass is a plant. So what's your answer?"

"Well, cow with grass, so the chicken is the odd one out. The cow's got to go with the grass because cows eat grass."

"Sure, that's another way of looking at it I guess!" I reply, with a sceptical tone in my voice, "but there's no 'right' answer is there?"

"No, not really," admits boyfriend T.

"I read about this professor who claims that Western people and Asian people think about things differently," he continues, " and this is one of his examples. Westerners tend to think about the categorisation, whereas Asian people think about the relationships and the harmony. I was so sure that cow with grass is the 'right' answer that it was almost shocking for me to hear your answer!"

"Interesting!" I reply. "Let's try it on someone else, I know, let's ask our Greek waiter."

The next time our waiter comes to our table, we ask him the same question that boyfriend T asked me.

"OK," replies the waiter, "so I choose grass and chicken together."

We both burst out laughing.

"Why you laugh?" asks the waiter, feeling a little vulnerable.

"Only because we didn't expect that answer," I reply, "what made you choose that?"

"Well, cows eat grass," explains the waiter, "so if I put the cow with the grass, I won't have any grass. So I put the chicken with the grass instead :-)."

Later, when I get back to the hotel, I do a bit of research online to find out more. The guy that boyfriend T was talking about must be Richard Nesbitt who wrote The Geography of Thought.

The next week when I'm back at work in the bank, I ask one or two of my colleagues, to test out the theory a bit more. My Chinese colleague replies as expected, that cows have to go with grass, but then all my other colleagues hear the subsequent discussion and end up answering the same way!

Do any readers have any views on this?