When I was traveling in Greece a few years ago and in Prague more recently I encountered “aggressive, arrogant Chinese tourists”. Newly successful people from the world’s newest superpower, they expected others to defer to them.

But I also met lovely Chinese people. There was a young man that shared a cab in Greece, and a candid young woman, etc. You can’t paint a whole nation with one brush, they are all individuals. I wonder what Americans were like when the US was the new kid on the superpower block?

I also have friends from Taiwan and Hong Kong who look down on the mainland Chinese because of their lack of manners. They remind me of West German friends who used to look down on East Germans. Communism was the difference between the two groups in both cases. How much of this is due to real differences and how much due to prejudice?