Perhaps it's only fair that I admit to being a hopeless 'first impressions' judge of people, places, ideas or just about anything else you care to name. So many of my first impressions have turned out to be way off the mark. Places I took an automatic dislike to - Japan in the rainy season for one - have come to feature on my favorites list; people I at first admired turned out to be jerks, which is probably a whole different column; and ideologies I was quickly persuaded by later revealed themselves to be abhorrent. Hey, I even disliked red wine for a while.

If your ability to make accurate instant assessments is as poor as mine and you're planning a trip to Beijing, or anywhere outside your comfort zone for that matter, my advice is don't be tempted to judge at all. Take things as they come and save the analysis for the experts.

In Beijing this may not be as easy as you might expect. You may be surprised to learn that the majority of Beijingers I've met so far seem to have a curious lack of pride in their city and their country in general. I should point out that these people are well-educated and often well-traveled with many of them having spent considerable time abroad. Obviously they represent only a small fraction of the Chinese population and their views don't necessarily reflect those of other socio-economic groups.

It's a worldwide ritual for locals to ask new arrivals what they think about wherever they happen to be. But out of all the places I've lived in and traveled around - and there have been many, too many my bank statements suggest - I've never encountered so much self-criticism as here in Beijing: "What do you think about Beijing's pollution?" "Don't you think the traffic here is terrible?" "Isn't the weather bad?" "Beijing is so crowded, does this make you feel uncomfortable?" "It's the season for dust storms now", "Few people speak English in China, it's very hard for you", "There's so much construction in Beijing, it's always noisy"¡­Very rarely has anyone asked me what I think of Beijing without a look of apology and apprehension.

I find this self-deprecation quite strange. Especially coming from New Zealand where the national Zeitgeist has morphed in the last decade or so from modest and self-effacing

to fair bursting with pride and self-satisfaction. I don't know how many times I've cringed listening to a big-headed Kiwi ask a foreigner what they think of the place an hour after they stepped off the plane. As though they had personally sculpted New Zealand's mountains and lakes, planted the forests, picked the award-winning grapes, taught good manners to the generally friendly citizens, designed the more attractive historic buildings, directed every Hollywood movie filmed there and wrote the frequently progressive laws of the land.

"Spare me!" I feel like shouting. How about the bad stuff? Is that all your doing as well? Needless to say any criticism of New Zealand, however constructive, tends to be taken as an insult. To criticize Godzone is to personally attack every New Zealander it sometimes seems.

Not so in China. If the only voices you've heard from China have been those of President Hu Jintao and his ministers you may be surprised to learn that beating themselves up seems to be a national sport. Perhaps the fact that most of them have lived abroad helps to explain their attitudes. Although there is a sense of pride about what has been achieved in economic terms so far, in my admittedly brief experience, I have somehow observed that the well-educated Chinese are not satisfied, or they have no sense of contentment. One can notice the desire for more in their faces.

And rightly so, many outsiders might argue, citing a whole slew of statistics on China covering everything from the average wage, pollution levels, women's rights, rural poverty and beyond. Yes I know; I've seen the stats, graphs and pie charts too.

But the important thing is surely that the country's leaders are taking steps to try to mitigate many of the major problems their country and its people are facing. It's clearly a very long and winding road that will lead the Chinese people to the Shangri-la where the entire populace can enjoy an excellent quality of life. In the meantime, why not take in the view now and then and be proud of what China already has?

Proud of what?

Of an incredible history tracing back thousands of years; of the masses of treasures, artifacts and structures left to posterity by emperors; of a diverse and often beautiful countryside; of a delicious and varied cuisine; of a high emergent status in the business world; of a rapidly improving lifestyles for millions of people; of Chinese sports stars, writers, actors, musicians, scholars and philanthropists who continue to contribute so much to the world; of the unique cultures of Chinese ethnic minorities; of more things than I have space to list.

But maybe you disagree; I'm no expert after all. And I'm not about to pass judgment on a country as vast and varied as China after a few weeks. I'll get back to you. In twenty years or so.