America is a Christian-dominated nation: around two-thirds of the population is Christian. We celebrate Christmas. I was, however, not raised Christian nor did my family ever really celebrate Christmas. We never really celebrated holidays, just had social gatherings of Chinese families together. The food was good. It was more for the parents and children to socialize and interact with each other. Thus, the concept of being “good” was never really instilled into my psyche as a child. Sure, I was reprimanded, but most of the time, it was not really about being “good”. It was probably more about obedience.
I imagine that had something to do with my downfall in medicine, a profession where being “good” is a highly valued attribute. Being a physician is, more or less, about following the rules and procedures. I was never particularly great with that. I remember as a child, for instance, I would steal things out of boredom. I would cheat in school (in a sort of petty way), not because I was lazy or didn’t feel like doing the work, but just because I was kinda bored and saw if I could get away with it. If anything, I cheated so that I could load up on more work–not that I’m trying to justify my actions or anything. I’m an immigrant to the United States and always felt I was unfairly behind in school.
In an ideal world, there would be no cheating and everything would be fair. But we’re not there yet as a society. I was never really taught not to do things like cheating. On the contrary, I had a close and accomplished family member who once told me that cheating was for smart people. I suppose a human being needs some sort of moral instruction in order to live a moral life.
The Ivory Tower 
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