A teacher educator describes his teaching experience in China and his finding that the Western behaviorist, alphabetic, linear mode of thinking has been widely adopted in education in that traditionally ideographic culture. The contrasting relationships of language, thought and behavior in the American and Chinese cultures is examined, and it is concluded that Chinese acceptance of alphabetic principles in education fit in with their need for control and certainty in their basically ambiguous world. It is proposed that the Chinese adopt alphabetic modes of thought and action for only those purposes for which they are uniquely effective and that will ultimately assimilate them so that they appear to be Chinese. It is further noted that alphabetic modes are pervasive in language teaching because of the emphasis on quantification in education, but that a trend away from fragmentation and linearity and toward ideographic, contextual learning is emerging in second language teaching pedagogy. (MSE)