CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- I'll be the first to admit that science is not my strong suit. For some reason, though, I've been very intrigued with the Human Genome Project. Maybe it's that cool double-helix design -- or a throwback to the genetics section of a biology class years ago.

So, when I saw that President Clinton referenced the project in his commencement remarks at WVU, I decided to delve further into some of the research. The statistic Clinton cited was that "the sequencing of the human genome revealed all people are 99.9 percent the same."

How can that be? It's hard to imagine that only one-tenth of 1 percent of DNA makeup separates Israelis and Palestinians. Or men and women.

I recently had the opportunity to reflect on this theory when I traveled to China with my husband, my best friend since kindergarten and a group from the Charleston Area Alliance. What an experience! To be on the other side of the world -- in a culture so different from ours -- helped me to see the differences and the similarities among us.

As Americans, I believe, we've become spoiled because so many parts of the world have accommodated us by learning English -- and even printing bilingual signs. And we hardly have a leg to stand on when referring to our country's 200-something years of existence as history -- when compared with those of multiple thousands of years steeped in tradition by other countries.

The Alliance had paved the way for us with our visas and all the arrangements for access and enjoyment of China's business and cultural attributes. (Kudos to Matt, Drew, Jeri, Danny and Mike!) What a contrast between the cities and the countryside -- from a canal trip through a local village that could have taken place in an earlier century -- to the high-speed maglev train that travels 300 miles an hour -- above the rails. I never saw telephone poles whiz by so fast!

Beijing and Shanghai have populations of 17 million and 19 million, respectively. As testament to this, we continually saw mopeds and bicycles weaving in and out of traffic, along with miles and miles of high-rise apartments to house the population. Seeing "The Bird's Nest" in Beijing brought back memories of the 2008 Olympics. And a nighttime visit to the business center of Shanghai, The Bund, made me think of Times Square on steroids!

Our hike of the Great Wall, though, brought such respect for the history of the region. Standing in Tiananmen Square brought back poignant flashbacks. And the ornate Forbidden City, which housed a series of emperors, was breathtaking.

A special part of the trip was the opportunity to see China's major industries "up close and personal" -- silk factories, pearl markets and tea plantations. The Buddhist temples put us in awe. Other than the re-entry adjustment caused by the 12-hour time difference (and the small number of "Western" toilets in some locations), it was an awesome experience for the nearly 70 participants. And I have to put in a good word for our subgroup -- Bus 2 rules!

The young people in China seem to gravitate toward Western ways, at least in terms of fashion. And, on the business front, it's a country whose government has tight control of its citizens and, yet, is embracing some hybrid developments with capitalism. Which brings me back to thinking about our similarities, differences and genomics.

To boil things down a bit, the human genome comprises the total genetic material in a human cell. Despite 5.5 billion variations on a theme, the differences from one genome to the next are minuscule. The genome, in turn, is distributed among 23 sets of chromosomes, which, in each of us, have been replicated and re-replicated since our conception.

The source of our personal uniqueness -- our full genome -- is preserved in each of our body's 60 trillion cells. We've learned a lot since the early efforts of the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Energy, the sequencing developed by Nobel Prize winners Fred Sanger and Arthur Kornberg and scientist John Craig Venter's pioneering research. According to a recent study by Venter, we may only be 99 percent similar, rather than 99.9 percent. But, still ...

Decoding of the DNA that constitutes the human genome has not been without its detractors -- or questions involving medical ethics and even future insurance coverage. Advocates, however, laud it for the contribution it could make toward understanding the causation of disease and the interplay between the environment and heredity in defining the human condition.

OK, enough of the science behind things. At the very time our world is, arguably, more divided than ever, I find it refreshing to go beyond the labels and affirm that we're more similar than different. Underneath it all, our ethnic groups, religions, political affiliations and socioeconomic status levels aren't the "stuff" that makes us "us."

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm all about uniqueness. After all, that's what really does differentiate us. Just like the personality testing models like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator point out, we all have distinct preferences or "leanings." That doesn't mean we can't orient our behavior into other areas; it just doesn't come as naturally.

The big takeaway here is from Aretha Franklin: R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the differences.

Linda Arnold, MBA, is a certified wellness instructor and chairwoman/CEO of The Arnold Agency, a marketing communications firm specializing in advertising, public relations, government relations and interactive marketing. Reader comments may be directed to Linda Arnold, The Arnold Agency, 117 Summers St., Charleston, WV 25301, or e-mailed to livelifefu...@arnoldagency.com.