Try a simple test. Read the nationality, then limit yourself to one word, or at most phrase, to sum up your automatic response. 1. Chinese; 2. Thai; 3. Singaporean; 4. Cambodian; 5. English; 6. Irish.
What words came up? Thrifty, hard-working, enigmatic, authoritarian, superstitious, unfortunate, perhaps, of some of the Asians? But no doubt it gets harder towards the end of the list, when the nationalities we know better or actually belong to, are put to the test. Apart from the fortunate few who have lived or travelled in these countries, our concepts are likely to be based on brief occasional reports, often dwelling on stereotypes.
There has been so much talk of "building bridges" in recent months that an international cliche penalty system was needed. So it was with a sinking heart that I noted the slogan for the new AsiaEurope Foundation, a high-powered group affiliated to the European Commission, is "building bridges with images".
However if the banality of the metaphor can be bypassed, ASEF has a point. The images, mostly shallow, that the two global regions have of one another need remodelling and deepening if the global village of which Japanese intellectual H. Kabo wrote in 1977 is to be a harmonious place.
This is what ASEF, child of ASEM, the Asia-Europe Meeting convened for the first time in March 1996, is trying to do. Its aim is "to promote better mutual understanding between Asian and Europe through greater intellectual, cultural and social exchanges". This all sounds dangerously aspirational. The executive director, hyperactive Singaporean professor Tommy Koh, is aware of that and keen to translate the noble purpose into concrete action. Exchange programmes for young journalists and swaps of artistic troupes are the first two ideas likely to be explored.
The foundation has hefty political support. There are 26 "governors", representing the 25 member countries and the European Commission. The current EC governor is Dr Horst Krenzler, and the French governor is a former president of the Commission, Mr Francois-Xavier Ortoli. Ireland is represented by a former ambassador to Japan (and coauthor of a book on the famous Irish Japanophile, Lafcadio Hearn), Mr Sean G. Ronan. Other countries have sent former ambassadors, academics or senior United Nations officials.
ASEF recently held its first international conference in Luxembourg. The main purpose was to examine the results of survey of cross-cultural reporting taken over 10 days at the end of June/beginning of July this year. The survey, mostly of upmarket English-language publications, such as the Economist and the European, recorded 1,563 instances of Asia reporting Europe, but only 749 in the opposite direction. Of the 749, nearly a third (253) were about the handover of Hong Kong to China at midnight on June 30th, with 496 on other topics.
The report, carried out by the Asia Media Information and Communication Centre in Singapore, came in for a fair amount of methodological criticism, but the shallowness of the mutual perceptions was undeniable. The tendency can be, as Mr Paul Zimmer of Luxembourg's St Paul Media Group and one of the founders of the Astra satellite project, told ASEF, to "exploit individual or collective passions and weaknesses". For example Singapore is often seen as the place where you can't grow your hair - a throwback to the time when Lee Kuan Yew, the powerful prime minister for many years, empowered to police to fine miscreants with undisciplined coiffure.
A US briefing paper on the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) obtained recently referred to the Michael Fay case, of several years ago in which a young American was caned for vandalism. Mention this to Singaporeans and they roll their eyes in horror at the thought of what, to them, is such an unfair and unrepresentative image still prevailing across the globe.
But think of the Irish perspective: wasn't it only a few weeks ago that sensibilities here were chafed by the portrayal in an English soap opera of the Irish as dirty, feckless, drunken? Or, more humorously, British comedian (of Irish stock) Steve Coogan last week lambasted a common view of the Irish in his brilliant spoof I'm Alan Partridge. In character as the odious talk-show host Partridge, Coogan voiced an outsider view of Dublin to Father Ted creators, Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, who were playing RTE television producers visiting Norwich. "Oh, you're from Dublin - that's where they make the bombs," Partridge says blithely. Racism is much in the news in Ireland at the moment, as we seek to cope with an unprecedented influx, however small in absolute terms, of disadvantaged immigrants through European Union borders. Many of these people are seen in one or two-word terms, by the righteous who foam at the mouth if their own nationality is reduced in such an insulting and ignorant manner.
This is worldwide. But I don't think it funny when a presumably educated woman says to me, "Funny to think of Australia having any culture." You don't think it funny when somebody equates Irishness with drunkenness or terrorism. Thais aren't amused at the concept that their country is one vast sex-tourism venue, or Singaporeans that caning for bad haircuts is a feature of daily life.
The Asia-Europe Foundation has a big job ahead, but should be wished godspeed.