Exactly. Judging from the story, he came off as a nitwit. However, now that the author has responded and shown himself to be a stand-up guy, a guy who clearly doesn’t resemble the character depicted in the story, I walk back my criticisms—not that author requires my validation, obviously.

But I still stand by my assertion that we’ll all ambassadors, as high-minded and pretentious as they may sound.

What I wanted to say is, pls save the holier-than-thou attitude. Its a freaking story. You (P, not Jonathan) look like a total noob with your ‘oh, we are all cultural ambassadors, if the Chinese are bigots towards foreigners its all the fault of people like you’.

We only know what the writer gives us. Maybe he was or is a total prick, I don’t know him from Adam. But on the other hand maybe not. The problem with his washer would be the landlord’s problem, why is the landlord not the asshole here?

Its just so stereotypical, oh, you are the bad kind of lao wai who gives the rest of us a bad name. And thats a very bs argument.

Justin is the last person I would call a “halfwit” or “asshole” expat. He was just exaggerating a humorous anecdote for the entertainment value.

That doesn’t mean that we’re obligated to maintain a sense of angelic innocence for time eternal, but it does mean that we should approach problems calmly and rationally and take the upper hand in this ongoing delicate ballet.

Sometimes that means falling on your sword while thinking about the long-term picture—a China that is less hostile to foreigners.

Most expats, I assume, are aware of how easily won-over most folks can be. How many times, for example, have we shared a drink with an old 哥们 who says something like, “You’re American? Great! I met an American once and he was very good. I like Americans.”

“You’re from Germany? Germany is very good! I met a German once and he was good at drinking. I like Germans.”

Simplified logic, to be sure, but that’s how many folks think—and this includes landlords and everyone else, from restaurant workers to cops.

I’ve also met the same amount of people who can’t get over just one negative interaction that they’ve had with a foreign national—Russian, French, Nigerian, whoever—after years and years.

It just takes one interaction to cement a stereotype—or as Chairman Mao would say, “one spark to start a prairie fire.”

On an anecdotal level, I’ve dealt with innumerable problems with landlords over the years precisely because of people like the author: they don’t rent apartments to foreigners because of past problems, for example, or they demand extra service fees because they don’t want to deal with the shit that trickles down.

In this case, literally, because the author didn’t pick up on PRC 101 on his first day in the country—paper goes in the trash. Everyone knows that. Never met anyone who didn’t.

So now, this woman probably has a major hate-on for foreigners and spreads the poison at any chance that she gets. I’ve seen it before and it will keep happening with every act of obnoxious, entitled behavior: Whether it be navigating a communication mishap with curses or skipping out on a restaurant bill, the irresponsibility leads to a hardening of anti-foreigner sentiment over time and leads to more pervasive and accepted discrimination.

All of that being said, when I read personal essays penned by halfwits gloating about their obnoxious behavior, I can’t help but call them out. Sorry. But these are the assholes who make China a worse-off place for everyone—fellow expats and locals alike.