Beliefs are shared ideas about how the world operates. They may be’ summaries and interpretations of the past, explanations of the’ present or predictions for the future, and may be based on common sense, folk wisdom, religion, science, or some combination of these. Some beliefs apply to intangible (无形的) things (for example, whether the human spirit lives on after .death). All cultures distinguish between ideas for which people have reasonable proof (for Americans, for ex ample, the idea that smoking increases the risk of cancer) and ideas that have not been, or cannot be, tested (for Americans, for example, the idea that there is intelligent life on other planets). Where and how people draw the line varies, however.
Bemuse beliefs shape both personal and social experience, basic differences in beliefs can account for some of the problems Vietnamese immigrants have had in American society. One exampie is beliefs concerning the nature of time. People in Western cultures believe time is irreversible (不可回转的). We think of time as a straight line. On every January 1st we add another year to the calendar. Traditionally, the Vietnamese have reckoned time in sixty-yesr cycles. Every sixty years the cycle starts over with .the year with which it began. Such a conception of time suggests that current events are not unique; that things come around again. American beliefs regarding time as linear create the sense that "time is ticking away"; the Vietnamese belief that time is cyclical creates an entirely different state of mind.
Beliefs apply not only to concepts like time but also to mundane (世俗的，世间的) aspects of the material world. Residents of San Francisco were offended greatly to learn that rural immigrants from Laos and Cambodia had been stalking(蹑手蹑脚地走近) their dinner in Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans could not understand how the newcomers could hunt and eat squirrels(松鼠) and stray dogs; the Indochinese(印度支那人) could not understand why San Franciscans did not— a classic case of the same object (in this case, dogs) having different cultural meanings. Even within our own culture we can see great variation in how people think about the same re source. Some people see dogs as working animals, acquired to protect our apartments or livestock; others treat their dogs as special friends or even substitute children.
If you were a Vietnamese, you would believe that time ______.
A．can not be reversed
B．is passing by ticking
C．can be recurred
D．is moving in cycles
