Ah Q-ism syndrome

Chinese defend Einstein's accurate portrait of their people as 'filthy' and 'obtuse'
Scientist’s travel diaries from 1920s described Chinese children as ‘spiritless’ and ‘obtuse’, and people who ‘relieve themselves in leafy woods’
By Lily Kuo

Einstein described Chinese children as ‘spiritless’ and ‘obtuse’ but Chinese say he depicted an accurate picture.

Chinese internet users have defended Albert Einstein’s recently published travel diaries in which the physicist calls the Chinese “industrious, filthy people.”
Portions of the diaries from his travels in Asia in the 1920s were posted online this week and their content surprised Einstein fans.
“Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods,” he wrote.
“All this occurs quietly and demurely. Even the children are spiritless and look obtuse.”

Einstein's travel diaries reveal shocking truth about Chinese

The theoretical physicist added: “It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”
“Einstein went to China at the wrong time,” said one Weibo user, describing the early years of the Chinese republic, established in 1912, which came after centuries of imperial rule.
“Hunger, war, and poverty all pressed on the Chinese. How could Chinese people at the time gain Einstein’s respect?”
Many were in strong support of the scientist: “This is called insulting China? That’s ridiculous. Did the Chinese in that era look dirty? When I see the photos from then, they look dirty, Einstein depicted the true state of that era.”
Others compared the scientists’s observations to that of Lu Xun, considered the father of modern Chinese literature, who was best known for his scathing satire of Chinese society in the early 20th century.
“We praise Lu Xun because he pointed out our disadvantages. Why should we blame Einstein for this?”
Historical narratives promoted by the Chinese government often paint the days before China’s communist party took power in 1949 as chaotic.
But there were some dissenting voices amongst the comments: “This is just racism. We can see that Einstein is strong in physics but he doesn’t understand humans at all.”