Time to discard old stereotypes about China and its people

During the latter years of my stay in the United States, I was a keen listener to National Public Radio (NPR).

It shocked me when commentators blithely lectured on China after living in Beijing or Shanghai for a couple of years. So I gradually weaned myself off NPR.

Yet there is only so much dance music one can listen to on commercial radio. A few days ago I found myself searching for NPR again, while in a rented car in San Francisco. Not surprisingly, I heard a long interview from a Chinese-American writer who had lived in Beijing and in Dharamsala, India, for years and had just published a book.