I showed someone a picture of one of China's metropoles a while ago and asked where they thought it was. Everywhere but China apparently. It is surprising how hard it is for people to let go of such badly outdated information.
granted, at the street-level it is mostly not so glamorous - but gosh reading comments online makes me feel like people are still operating on an early 2000s conception of China.
Most of the press coverage about China in the US focuses on pollution, sewage, labor practices, authoritarianism, etc. It's not surprising that many have such a one-sided view and forget how easy it would be to present the US in similar (or worse) light to an unbiased audience.
