For the longest time, I have admired Westerners for their grace and good manners. I had built up this impression of Westerners from old movies, in which gallant heroes like Zorro and Superman would not only save the day, but never fail to say "please" or "thank-you."

But since coming to Beijing in 2008, I've discovered that real Westerners are not like this at all. A recent experience in the subway finally stripped me of the last vestiges of my positive impression of "Western gentlemen."

It was on Line 10, late in the afternoon, when there are few passengers. Five laowai got on, each carrying a skateboard. Promptly, they started skate-boarding - inside the subway carriage!

Clang! Thwack! Bonk! Each time the skateboard hit the ground, a deafening noise rung out from the sealed carriage. Not only that, but each time one of the skateboarders messed up, his friends would hoot and laugh and yell. They made a real raucous. It was as if they thought they were in a private skateboarding competition, rather than a subway carriage that was shared with other people.

I could see an elderly woman getting quite upset, but she continued to sit in resignation. Finally, after around five minutes, a young Chinese man from an adjacent carriage approached the laowai about the noise.

"Can you please keep your voices down?" said the man in Chinese. "This is the subway."

The guys, to their credit, complied, and kept quiet until they got off. But they didn't seem as if they were sorry. As soon as they got off the subway, I could hear the noise of their skateboards again, even before the door closed behind them. I frequently encounter Westerners talking and laughing loudly in the subway, with an air of superiority, as if saying, "It's not as if you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, so who cares !"

I have plenty of laowai friends who are really nice and respectful. But in public, I find myself constantly encountering rude, obnoxious, inconsiderate foreigners.

They say that when in Rome, one should do as the Romans do.

But in the case of our laowai visitors - I would amend this idiom slightly. When in China, do not do as the Chinese don't do.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.