And so it was on a recent flight to China. I was sitting next to a woman and, as is often the case when you end up sitting next to someone for 12 hours but who you are never likely to see again, we surrendered information about ourselves that was of little consequence and painted vague pictures of who we really are.
Until she started to talk about China and, in particular, the Chinese.
She and her husband, also from New Zealand, were returning to China, where they had both been working for the past 18 months and were likely to stay for 18 more.
She flashed a glance at the passengers across the aisle to make sure her comments, if overheard, wouldn't get her in trouble, and then said: "You'll see, there is nothing to like about the Chinese."
"This isn't my first time in China," I said. "I've always found the Chinese to be very friendly."
Either she didn't hear me or thought what I actually said was, "Is that right? Please tell me more," because she carried on as though imparting some important insight that would help me survive in a land of great danger.
"Before I went, someone once told me, 'You'll see, the Chinese are like a race of people who forgot to go to preschool. They never learned to queue, they never learned to wash their hands, they are rude and they spit,"' she said.
"That actually sounds like the French," I replied.
Now, it's not that I'm racist. Some of my best friends are French. The thing is, my comment was not supposed to be taken seriously, which was supposed to communicate to her that I wasn't taking her seriously.
Thinking back, I remember my lips moving and the words coming out of my mouth but maybe I'm mistaken. Because no matter what I said, she didn't understand that I didn't share her views. In the end I was just glad that the in-flight movies were there to save me.
Now, I know there is a lot of spitting in China and that queuing doesn't seem to come naturally. Handwashing I can't comment on and rudeness, to my mind, is a relative thing. But it is small-minded to base your opinion of such a large group of people on those things alone.
Maybe that's why people who hold on so strongly to such opinions feel so compelled to pass them on to total strangers.
For me, every time I have been to China I have encountered people who were warm and friendly, been impressed by the intergenerational ties in families and the strong sense of community from the villages to areas of the big cities, and come away believing there is much to be learned from the culture.
When I told my (white) host of my encounter he sighed, obviously having heard similar stories before.
He has also been in China for 18 months and is keen to stay on as long as he can. There are things that took him a while to get used to but he has discovered a world that continues to fascinate him.
"When I hear New Zealanders talking like that, I just say, 'Well, why don't you go home then?"'
I suppose eventually most do. What a shame we have to let them back into the country.
Herald production journalist Duncan Gillies is a white man whose wife and children are French.
