[menshiki]

> I also blame a lack of English and Mandarin fluency in China and US respectively for causing this issue. The average Chinese or American doesn't get a chance to see life on the other side, so people end up building orientalized images.

I doubt the lack of English and Mandarin fluency is a big factor here. The CCP made a deliberate choice to isolate China from the outside world as much as possible.

[alephnerd]

The crackdown on English only began around 2020-21, yet even in much more laid back times in China there wasn't much cultural exchange outside of the elites.

WhatsApp and FB used to be popular for a hot second (and still were in Xinjiang and Tibet until crackdowns in 2016-18), and it used to be easy for non-Chinese nationals to join WeChat or SinaQQ until 2017-19, yet most American commentators wouldn't go on there to get a feel of discourse on the other side, or go to a Tier 2/3/4 city, while Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese tourists, journalists, and businesspeople would.

People forget that most Asian Americans would could bridge the gap tend to be on the younger end (10s-30s) but most decision makers are in their 60s-70s. It's the same issue across the Pacific in China as well.