I still snort and giggle thinking about the one time I spoke to Chinese exchange students at my uni. They told me their version of the events between the west and the Qing Dynasty. Let's just say a lot of their shit and our shit doesn't add up. Somebody is lying like hell. Or both sides are.
Also, their concept of "The Great Humiliation" as they call it, has got to be some of the most arrogant pro-Chinese proganda I've ever heard regarding nationalism. I swear it's like they believe the Chinese are "the chosen ones" to inherit the entire planet and the West is just an eyesore slowing them down. That and to listen to them talk about India, it's similar to hearing a South Korean talk about North Korea. Chinese I've heard almost seem to hate India as bad as they hate Taiwan. Goddamn if they ever had their own version of Hitler (Mao Zedong doesn't count since he was only interested in China itself so he would be closer to Stalin than Hitler), that guy would make the actual Hitler seem more like Po from the Teletubbies.
I can remember those exchange students bragging about their homeland and how the "Middle Kingdom" was the superior land of the world. They weren't too happy with me when I pointed out that China has spent nearly half, or exactly half of its entire existence under foreign occupation, and often getting its ass kicked in battle by armies half or less than half of its size. Then they mentioned America and Vietnam in response and it just became an amusing back and forth. It was kind of fun to rag on eachother's countries. They have some peculiar ideas about Capitalism too, not that I care one fig either way. They saw Capitalism as some weird mutant variant of Socialism. I disagreed with that but I wasn't knowledgable enough on the subject to explain why I disagreed so I just shrugged on that.
Then they invited me to drink sake with them. Then I introduced them to Corona with Lime. The rest of the night was an enjoyable blur. I was kinda sad to see them go back home when they did.