One of Yuan's colleagues even divorced his wife, sold his home and moved permanently to Shennongjia to carry on the work. Such fascination has flowered in China in response to the ideological vacuum created by the deterioration of communism, analysts say. Unorthodox ideas long suppressed or declared illegal are bubbling back to the surface. Scoffers note that scientific education in China is weak, making it easier for people to fall prey to theories that wouldn't pass muster in more educated societies. Sima Nan, China's answer to the Harry Houdini who exposed fraudulent spiritualists, blames traditional Chinese thinking for making people susceptible to the unscientific.
Westerners try to get at things very clearly, asking what, why and how much.
Chinese are more interested in dealing with things using metaphors or intuitive comparisons. It's not a question of whether one believes in the existence of UFOs or not.