BigEd wrote:
There's certainly a culture where [...]
I do find prejudice rather distasteful - let's not slip from anecdote to generalisation to prejudice.
Like you say, it's a matter of culture. We're not being racist, although racial differences often come with culture differences too, which is why I don't recommend inter-racial marriages to young people. Marriage is enough work as it is, without adding cultural differences to the mix.
My employer has done business with various companies in Korea, and we find this kind of corruption I mentioned. Ex-employees I kept in contact with for a little while after they left and went to work for competitors say their new employers experience the same thing there. It's so much easier and better to do the business in the States, but cost-prohibitive in many cases.
The city we live near has about 87,000 people. A friend who's a sergeant on the police force there says they have anywhere from five to fifteen cops out on the beat at a time, depending on what time of day or night, and whether it's a weekend or holiday. Some students from China visited and stayed with my mother-in-law in this city, and they couldn't figure out how things could stay orderly when they weren't seeing policemen everywhere. They kept asking, "Where are the police?" because they never saw any. Different culture.
The country where I grew up had very little serious crime, but litter was everywhere. People walking down the side walk (and there was
a lot more pedestrian traffic!) would unwrap a candy or chewing gum and just drop the wrapper on the side walk, without a thought. They could also argue very loudly without it getting personal.
Culture differences. You can't always ignore them when choosing where and how to do business.