This paper explicates ways of thinking that operates on the grounded theory approach (GT). It provides a discussion of GT's intellectual roots; explains some questions and doubts raised about this method since the publication of Glaser and Strauss's 1967 book, and discusses the techniques and procedures of this method to analyze qualitative data. Also analyzed is its possible implications for teaching and research in the Chinese intellectual community-especially drawing on GT's grassroots, humanistic character. GT may provide a set of procedures helpful to researchers who desire not to be constrained by Western scholarship yet are attempting to achieve a grounded, wholistic and detailed understanding of Chinese society. A theme running trough this paper most characteristic of GT is its striving to make GT studies both nomothetic and idiographic, and its procedures both rigid and creative.