In New York City you dare not stare at someone on the subway. In the elevator you avoid all eyes and face forward. But when you sit in a diner booth with your friends or co-workers you are expected to maintain rapt eye contact while juggling your BLT to hear the story of their latest argument with their boss.

In China the hierarchy of eye contact is reversed. Close friends glance until eyes collide then turn away, routinely downward. But on the street, even in the elevator, with strangers it is open season for eye molestation.

My routine is to stare back with an insane Jack Nicholson smile. Few Chinese adults choose to sustain the cross-cultural interaction.

And in other country this would be: Hipster prick with an iPhone takes photos of random poverty, posts them on his blog and simultaneously spunks in his skinny jeans whilst bragging about how cool it is, but nobody feels a need to cry about it. Sure, he has no class, but like all other countries, China also has hipster twats that we'd all just love to punch in the face.

Most likely migrant workers judging by their shabby clothes and typical fruit gifts then.

Some of the efforts made to troll this board are so pathetic.

Picture: Chinese men staring at some Westerner dude in Beijing.