Stereotypes a century ago

Ha-Joon Chang, "Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies, and the Threat to the Developing World"

In his 1903 book, Evolution of the Japanese, the American missionary Sidney Gulick observed that many Japanese “give an impression … of being lazy and utterly indifferent to the passage of time”

...McPherson, a Viceroy of India (and therefore quite used to treacherous road conditions), wrote, “I found the roads so bad in Germany that I directed my course to Italy”...

British travellers in the early 19th century also found the Germans dishonest – “the tradesman and the shopkeeper take advantage of you wherever they can, and to the smallest imaginable amount rather than not take advantage of you at all … This knavery is universal”, observed Sir Arthur Brooke Faulkner, a physician serving in the British army.