Two days ago out on the route where I run, I passed a smallish Asian woman. I greeted her and she signed that she didn't speak English. She was Thai, to which I said to her in Thai, " I hear the Thai people are really beautiful. She put her hands together, bowed, and said sawadee ka, to which I returned the courtesy, then kept running. When I passed her again I called out "kob kun ka" and we bowed again.

In 2011 I spent about seven months with a young man who was an engineering student and a member of the local Buddhist community. He taught me a bunch of phrases, and important cultural sensitivities ranging from dress codes and how to behave. I followed ALL of them. I was treated like royalty, even by cab drivers who warned me where not to go to avoid scams. I never forgot how important it was to learn the basics. I spent a month there, then when I went back in 2015, remembered just enough to get by. while I no longer have the luxury of studying like that for every country I visit, I make it a point to at least learn Hello and thank you, and if possible, a complimentary phrase. That habit has made me friends all over the world and put a delighted surprise on the faces of people whose nationality I can recognize and then use a word or two in their native tongue.

The rudeness you describe is the same behavior writ large by an arrogant, uninformed American Pentagon trying to force our way of life and being onto other cultures. I've been hearing general after general admit it. It is a failed policy, always ways, American corporations have done it for years to their detriment. We do NOT learn from our mistakes. The rest of the world does not want to be America. Maybe learn English, but they don't want to be the boorish US that we keep showing to the world.