the primary difference?

From Gita Mehta's Karma Cola:

'The Eastern Master when asked "What is the Answer?" has traditionally replied "Who is Asking?" In that lies a central difference between Eastern and Western thought. The East is not concerned with intellectual aggrandizement, so much so that Jung testily called the Eastern mind childish, a mind that didn't even ask questions, but simply perceived them. In a tradition where the question asks itself and the answer replies itself and all that remains is to establish the identity of the asker, clearly the occidental is going to experience serious difficulty in eliciting any information at all, be it spiritual, physical or just the fastest way to get to the next town.'