The vast majority of people saying Chinese people are ‘peasants’ are racist, but if someone told me that they met someone in Fuckknowswhereville, USA, who genuinely thought that mainland China was still struggling under a feudal regime, living hand-to-mouth with villages of illiterates who lacked the educational tools to organize against their overlords, and was genuinely overjoyed to hear the contrary, that the Qing Dynasty had fallen and that China entered the modern world, rather than disbelieving or dismissive… well, I’ve heard too many innocently stupid opinions from my fellow Americans about international issues to reject that out of hand.

Admittedly, being from Fuckknowswhereville, USA, also greatly increases the chance of them being horrifically racist pieces of shit.