The societies in Taiwan and Hongkong are much more westernized and advanced than Mainland China

Indeed, one only needs to look at the manners and cleanliness in those places compared with the mainland...it is light years ahead!!

The problem is as you said, a frog is always a frog no matter how much he tries to change, or in the case of the mainland a farmer...as an agrarian society, it will take a long time for bad habits like laundry being hung out in public, shouting, spitting, throwing food into the street to ever really change!! Look at the rats of Nanchang as an example, well fed! LOL!