I believe Kingston possesses an innate Chinese trait which is the primary reason for what prohibits her from saying too much in her three texts. Perhaps somewhere within the Chinese culture and tradition, there is a hidden idea, much like a “Chinese unconscious mind” which only Chinese people possess, that suppresses the voice of people about certain things. Why is it that Kingston, you and I, suppress our voices and were shy back in grade school? It is because we are Chinese. We felt inferior to everyone around us, and because we were first generation Americans who did not know English. We were in an environment surrounded by unfamiliar faces, might be ghosts. The Chinese culture distorts our perception and filters what goes on in our minds.
These daily ideas and activities are things which we have seen or done daily, or became a large factor to the growth of our mind as we develop, therefore such ideas and activities are engraved into our minds. All the input one receives has to go through a series of “tests”. The end result would essentially be something a Chinese person would see. Of course, before going through these filters, it would go through the person’s “normal” conscious and unconscious filters, first, such as morals and ethics. These filters which have developed with one's mind are the cause for one's silence.
But Ellen Goodman’s essay, “The Company Man” presents us with a different form of silence from which we’ve seen. Rather than silence from being part of an ethnic culture, Goodman creates another form of silence which occurs from a personality culture.
It was because of his Type A workaholic personality which created a wall between him and his family. His wife and children could not convince him to spend more time with them. 
 Phil’s personality filtered out everything unrelated to work, only allowing the stimuli which was related to work to pass through into his mind. Goodman’s personality culture is very similar to what we see in Kingston’s “On Discovery” because Tang Ao’s desire and lust for sex is the cause for his submission to the matriarchal society, while Phil’s lust for working leads to his untimely death. 
While Kingston expresses silence through an ethnic culture, Ellen Goodman expresses silence through one's personality. However, Both Kingston and Goodman's basis for silence is filtering of the mind. A hierarchy is created within one's mind that grows and expands as the person ages, which allows certain stimuli to pass in, such as Phil's work matters, and disallows certain stimuli to come out, such as Kingston's knowledge of her aunt. One may see personality and ethnic cultures as walls or obstacles, but I view them as fortifications for the mind. Without these filters, an individual will absorb all stimuli, ultimately becoming a vegetable. Filters create a sense of self, a sense of belonging, and ultimately a sense of direction. This sense of direction drives an individual's purpose in life. We realize these ideas on the tour Kingston guides us through, such as her childhood memories, learning about the existence of her aunt, learning English, and her imagination. As a result of Kingston's tour, I realized that I have already been unconsciously avoiding the outcast table by staying silent. The filters that I have developed shape and create who I am today and have kept me away from the outcast table.
