It’s hilarious when I saw a group of travelers getting interviewed in some other countries, like for example in Indonesia or Thailand, claimed that people there are much friendlier or more welcoming than folks from their own countries. There are three reasons as to why they may feel that way. First of all, travelling to a foreign nation will automagically make them the most generous/lavish consumers of that nation for a period of time, thus business owners and tourism workers will be much nicer to them than to the locals, same pattern happens in every country. Second, Asian countries have this sense of ‘national/ethnic image’ they wish to present to the outsiders, to be approved by the foreigners, particularly if they are ethnically very different from the travelers, say caucasians or blacks. Third, local people are disposed to offer or interact more with foreigners, especially if foreigners came from developed nations, for the fact that they want to get to know more about them or make more connections. Those behaviors are apparently not consistent with how they treat locals similar to them or if they learned that you know their country very well and have settled there. To summarize, travelers may find Asian people friendlier not because the locals are in actuality friendlier, but because the fact that they are foreigners in that country and spend thousands of euros or dollars on their businesses.