China famous social critic in the 19th century Lu Xun lamented that Chinese society is a 'man eats man' society, alluding to the internal conflicts and pressures in Chinese society that moulded the Chinese cultural behavior.
Many PRC friends acknowledged these ugly and cruel things happening in their society back in China but also noticed that Chinese diaspora for example in Singapore still retain some of the 'diluted' traits of the China Chinese etc the propensity to engage in petty quarrels and fights among themselves over trivial matters like noisy neigbours, traffic incidents, over mrt, bus seats and hawker centre queues. They observed that comparatively, the Malays and Indians are less inclined to engage in these pettiness among themselves compared to the ethnic Chinese.
I guess these peculiar traits comes from the evolution of the Chinese people innate struggle in a limited arable land with big population competing with limited resources. So it is an evolution of a first come, first serve and the strongest wins in order to ensure survival. My PRC friends notice that cutting queues, fighting over seats or even cheating is an indication that unless one fights for it, other Chinese will snatch it away.This also explains why the Chinese by nature dislike their own Chinese so much as they are their direct competitors in almost everything the Chinese does. This is a very sad thing affecting an entire people and should not be a matter to joke on.
Instead of poking fun or looking down of the behavior of the Chinese or any communities, it is important to know why they behaves like these and what can society do to mitigate it.