Just Looking ...

This is a valid analysis. What if I did not agree with you? Is there any way we could decide who is right? Interviewing the family might help as well as your own insight into Chinese ways if you're Chinese. But not everyone can be relied on to understand the reasons behind their own behavior, so whatever the family say is not the last word. Also not all Chinese would agree on describing a specific behavior by other Chinese, so your intuitions cannot be the last word, either. So are there ways to prefer one interpretation to another?
 

While I agree with the professor's comment that the motivations behind our actions are not always obvious to the observer nor to the actor himself, I have difficulty accepting the notion that a given "interpretation" can be as valid as the next. Put in another way, there must be a theory in place that allows us to validate one analysis (or more) over others.
This alludes to a problem I had with an idea raised in the Barthes (and other) lectures: that the message at the level of myth goes beyond truth or falsehood. Although professor Kalmar has noted that much of Barthes' theories have been met with skepticism, I think the issue remains, particularly in the face of the ever-increasing trend toward radical postmodern theory in the field of anthropology. The rejection of 'grand theories' and the elevation of the importance of individual subjectivities (i.e. interpretations) to the level of truth in themselves, leads to the rather unprofessional predicament of its-my-word-against-yours. Such is the danger of "reading" culture as a "text".
So without wanting to be a one-man crew against what seems to be the dominant trend in cultural studies and embarrass myself any further with my first entry on this blog, I'll answer with a 'yes' to the professor's question for now. There must be an objective way to validate different "readings" of culture; the alternative would be a messy free-for-all in which everyone is right and therefore everyone is wrong.