Lazy Stereotypes Hampers Real Intercultural Understanding

A piece of news from a few days ago gave a group of cynical netizens a good laugh. An Air India flight bound for Delhi was forced to turn back less than five hours after it took off from Chicago. The cause was a widespread blockage of toilets on the flight, leading to 11 of the 12 lavatories onboard being out of service despite the flight being less than a third of the way to the destination. Anxious passengers, upon return to Chicago, were provided with accommodation and booking on alternative airlines on their way, as one can assume, home.

Subsequent investigations revealed that many passengers flushed pieces of clothing, plastic bags, and other articles that the toilets onboard were clearly not equipped to handle. It is to this piece of additional information that the social media crowd reacted with pure vitrol. Many past passengers shared stories of having to sit next to Indians who appeared oblivious to how airplane lavatories work. Past travelers to India shared stories of seeing locals defecating in the open. Those who supposedly worked as airport cleaning crew remarked how no one wanted to deal with the dirty Air India planes after they landed.

It took no time for the comments to become a buffet of anti-Indian xenophobia. Underneath social media posts of news articles, people remarked that Indians are smelly and that India is full of trash. Some added that India's lack of toilets has created a race of people who are incapable of hygiene, an almost genetic trait that is not erased by a visit to America. Others even postulated that the lack of hygiene in Indian food and the danger of coming into physical contact with Indians who supposedly use their left hand to clean up instead of toilet paper cause intense diarrhea that hastens the death of overworked toliets.

There is no denying that some Indians have no experience using an airplane lavatory. Many Indian workers that I met during my travels in East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East were leaving their country, and sometimes even their village for the very first time. With little formal schooling, they struggled with filling out customs declarations, handling the seatback entertainment systems, picking the food served onboard, and of course, knowing how to use the toilet. But despite their anxiety over the unfamiliar, all seemed eager to learn and master the new "technology" around them.

Indeed, netizens' eagerness to pick out a few examples of "bad" Indians serves to discount those who are trying their best, intending to equate current ignorance with a permanent one based on a fundamentally racist notion that some cultures are by nature backward and incapable of positive behavior. The stereotypes of Indians being dirty and unable to use a flush toilet, in this context, exist purely to make these social media commentators believe that somehow their own cultures are irreversibly superior to the Indian one.

Imagine that same logic being applied elsewhere. The damage can be much graver than just some unsavory social media posts. My trip to Shanghai last year reminded me that China's current bout of deflation is partly due to a dearth of foreign visitors and investors due to some negative impressions. While foreigners stay out of China for political reasons rather than the perceived lack of hygiene that India suffers from, the generalization of insecurity in multiple definitions ultimately causes both countries to be much less international than their expanding economies suggest.

Changing the stereotypes will be a tall order. Air India's lavatory fiasco was no doubt the work of a few individuals, a tiny fraction of the several hundred passengers on the flight who did not even use the toilets, much less try to destroy them. Similarly, most visitors to China will find their tripes defined by hospitality, stunning sights, and new cultural experiences, not censorship and ideological indoctrination. Yet, as long as the vast majority of foreigners never experience interacting with the country and its citizens face to face for prolonged periods, the negative impressions stick, propagated by those who gleefully spread lies.

At the very least, the foreigners' interest in cementing their superiority by belittling others has a silver lining. My trip to Shanghai found the city to have some incredible bang for the buck. The food and the accommodation, in particular, are great value for what one would pay for. In the same vein, India remains one of the cheapest places in the world to travel to in multiple rankings, despite its rapid economic growth in recent years. For those who are "brave" enough to face "smelly" Indians and the "communist" Chinese in real life, real bargains can be had.