I used to be amused by the commonly-held belief among my friends back in Canada who spoke about China in a certain way. Whether they had ever visited the country or not didn’t matter, China was, to them, quaint. They considered it a “backwater.” This is a slang term in American English used to describe an area that is perceived to be culturally or economically stagnant.

I remember the first time I visited China, as a student spending the summer studying Chinese at Erwai: The Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute. That was 22 years ago. I look back at those days and remember the “quaintness” with fondness: My spartan dormroom and even more spartan communal shower rooms; the mosquito netting set over the beds on a frame of bare two-by-fours; the “no air-conditioning;” the thermos flasks of hot water placed by my bedside each night, next to blue-and-white porcelain cups with lids.

I would go mingle with local students and peek into their old English textbooks. They were reading stories of famed Canadian doctor Norman Bethune, and I remarked to them that not even Canadian university students were learning about him.

I remember befriending two local students, Rona and Jean, from Shandong Province. One day, shortly before I was to leave China, I asked them if they would join me for a cup of coffee at the fancy Jianguo Hotel, and they eagerly accepted. I remember showing them how to use the electronic hand dryer in the restroom, perhaps feeling a bit smug or relieved that I, a Westerner held in esteem simply for being just that, could show them a thing or two in their own country. (A couple of years later, I had a similar experience when I was traveling alone on a trans-pacific flight and was bumped up into first class. When the flight attendant came to me bearing a linen-covered lunch tray, my seatmate, an American businessman, had to show me that my ‘seat-back’ tray was actually hidden in the arm rest of our sumptuous first-class chairs.)

But now, having been living in Hong Kong, China, these last 12 years, I am under no illusions of quaintness. And the impressions of my fellow-North Americans are no longer amusing. They disappoint. In this age of instant global communications, what exactly do these people not understand? How can they not know, now, that Shanghai leaves Toronto, Montreal, or Calgary in the dust when it comes to urban planning. They still think China a backwater, and I can’t help but think it is partly because I underestimate their ignorance. I don’t mean this as a value-judgment, but I do think the priorities are skewed: How can large swaths of people be so misinformed about China today, when people know so much about Paris Hilton or Tom-Kat?

Perhaps these people’s outdated concept of China has something to do with the idea of being afraid of change. Perhaps this is the nature of our species, but there are plenty of people who recognize that change is good, and that much of what we hold dear exists due to the efforts of the kinds of people who embrace change. I think most of them are living in China now.