[dang]

> China has cultivated in its people a very troubling mental complex

> China drills bitterness into its people about their past humiliations, and uses this to develop racist nationalism

I don't believe you meant to, but you crossed into nationalistic and racial flamewar with this comment. Imagine how it must feel to read something like this if you're on the receiving end. It's surprising how many of the replies below managed to remain thoughtful. When I read those comments and compare them to yours, it's clear who the model HN users are in this case.

I don't think you were being malicious, I think you underestimated the difference between musing in a personal conversation and broadcasting to potentially millions of people. For example, it isn't enough to protest that you didn't mean all Chinese, just the ones who <insert caveat here>. That is far too crude to undo the impact such claims make on the ones who are being categorized. If you can imagine yourself in that position, this is not hard to see; yet it is hard to imagine, because we're mostly so certain that none of it could ever be justified in our own case, so it feels like no big deal.

[natch]

Point taken, thanks.