The East is Red

It's so easy to generalize; you who know me well, though, know that I myself am loathe to generalize. But as I get around I see so many uncouth Chinese men and women that sometimes think, god, the Chinese are uncouth. More likely, of course, that the shear numbers of Chinese insure that there will be lots of the great uncouth among them. The place is so big that maybe there are whole huge backwaters that are full of them.

I'd hate to be judged by the behavior of a random sample of Americans traveling overseas, as in 'ooooooo-wwweeeee Earle!!! this here red stuff is Spicy!!!

Fact remains, however, there are lots of uncouth Chinese traveling around Asia. I've seen them in Thailand and I saw them recently in Kuala Lumpur too. Women eating like cowboys, or pirates; sitting way back from the table, legs wide open, elbows out, holding up big chunks of food on the tips of their forks and taking noisy bites; talking to people at their own table at the top of their lungs; laughing and shouting greetings to every friend they see, no matter how far away; wearing every cheap outfit imaginable; standing interminably in front of the coffee pots stirring their cups; taking little bites of tropical fruit, smacking their lips loudly and making a face like they were doing mathematics.

To be fair, I avoid the expensive hotels so I don't rub shoulders too often with the hoi-paloi of any country. Also, the Chinese haven't gotten out much recently, I mean in the last two thousand years, so maybe they just get over-excited.

Sh*t, I can be pretty uncouth myself, but I think (hope) that I am much better at hiding the fact.