<p>
</p>
<p>That difference in public statements (from western parents) is just a difference in cultural standards of politeness. I remember seeing a man from a neighboring country in Asia (not China, specifically, but a country with a similar cultural pattern) describing his wife, who WAS PRESENT and who was my classmate, as “ugly.” (In fact, she was beautiful.) He did that to be polite, to not brag about her in public. That felt seriously weird to me, a westerner (who was living in yet a third Asian country with the two of them when this incident occurred) but I understood where he was coming from.</p>