This is a fairly disorganized, highly-opinionated blog post--it would benefit most from broken down into several smaller topics (Chinese government's treatment of expatriates and isolationism, US-China relations or the current state of the US government, opinions on Chinese social culture as a whole).
Since most of the comments here are commenting on the author's cultural opinions, I'll post a quote by Anthony Bourdain here. In the quote, Bourdain was talking about food, but it applies to culture as well, and even aligns with what the original poster said about China being more 'foreign than other countries': "The one thing I know for sure about China is, I will never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There’s simply not enough time."
People in Beijing might gawk at a foreigner (I've seen it happen), and you could even stereotype people in Beijing as doing so, but I've found that to be much less common in Shanghai. And these two are prominent cities--are rural villagers more likely to act isolationist, and if so, why? Because of the Chinese government's own isolationist principles, and China's history? The author should have been exploring this aspect in a historical context rather than simply criticizing.
Since most of the comments here are commenting on the author's cultural opinions, I'll post a quote by Anthony Bourdain here. In the quote, Bourdain was talking about food, but it applies to culture as well, and even aligns with what the original poster said about China being more 'foreign than other countries': "The one thing I know for sure about China is, I will never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There’s simply not enough time."
People in Beijing might gawk at a foreigner (I've seen it happen), and you could even stereotype people in Beijing as doing so, but I've found that to be much less common in Shanghai. And these two are prominent cities--are rural villagers more likely to act isolationist, and if so, why? Because of the Chinese government's own isolationist principles, and China's history? The author should have been exploring this aspect in a historical context rather than simply criticizing.