Exactly. I'm not completely agree with the author too, he just indulged and descant everything. If you see every country in this aspect, nowhere is perfect.
Paul i think you should not judge a "whole" nation by one particular person. It just sounds a bit prude.
Not to mention that many 'other' things could have happened for this misunderstanding. (Maybe you didn't understand eachother fully because of different accents, maybe he wanted to Joke and Etc...)