Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical novel about Chen Zhen, a young student from Beijing, who lives amongst the Mongolian nomads in Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. In the novel, Chen Zhen is taught wolfology and grassland logic by the wise leader of the group, Bilgee. In the book there are moments of tension between the Chinese students and Mongolian nomads in the way they view their environments and what they considered2 beneficial for the environment. On page 215, Yang states, “The way I see it, the three of us should forget about studying university courses on our own and concentrate on the far more interesting wolfology.” This sentence highlights the ongoing theme that exists throughout the book as far as which philosophy works the best: university courses or methods learned from living among the Mongolian landscape, wolfology and grassland logic. The question I raised while reading the book was, “Would Chen Zhen and Yang have had the same outlook while staying with the Mongolians if they only used wolfology…show more content… An example of him using his prior knowledge is on page 173 when he and Yang are observing the wolf cub. In this excerpt, he contrasts the wolf cub as being the brute and the puppies as being domesticated. He uses the information he knows and applies it in agreement with Bilgee, about how the Mongols are wild and free while China is colonized and domesticated. On pages 217-218, Chen gives Zhang a quick world history lesson in order to convince him why he should be allowed to raise the wolf cub to learn the nature of the wolves. He uses his intellect to make a pleading argument that in order to not only “understand the spirit and character of the nomads”, but to also “appreciate the differences between the nomads and farmers or the inherent qualities of each”, he must raise the wolf cub (Rong