People, show a little confidence will ya?

Part of my prep work for blogging includes searching Taiwan related stuff on the internet, and I came across this video today. The video was made by stopkiddinstudio, who essentially has the same purpose as I- to showcase Taiwan to the English-speaking world. The videos are mostly interesting, but the one I linked above was a real tear jerker for me. It's a short video with several foreigners saying what they like about Taiwan, and it's not even meant to be emotional, but seeing my (internationally unrecognized)  country getting recognized by foreigners is just......oh god Imma cry again so I'll leave you to finish that sentence yourself. 

Brought to the edge of tears by the video, I moved on to the comments section, expecting to see more heartwarming comments, instead, I saw people bashing Taiwan and Taipei, and surprise surprise, those negative comments are from Taiwanese netizens.
Can we all pause for a second and let me rant a bit:
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! DO YOU NOT LOVE YOUR COUNTRY? WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE TO PUT DOWN YOUR OWN COUNTRY ON THE INTERNET?
I totally understand why they do this, but I simply can not accept. In Taiwanese/Chinese culture, humility is a great virtue, but humility gone wrong can lead to low self-esteem and no confidence. So when someone compliments you, for example: "Wow you are really good at dancing!" you will respond with "No that's not true, I suck at dancing," or bring up another personal flaw "But I'm really bad at singing," I know this scenario all too well because I am guilty of this. I can't take compliments. It's my weakness. While I'm still working on that, I would NEVER, EVER, BADMOUTH ABOUT MY OWN COUNTRY IN FRONT OF A FOREIGN AUDIENCE.

It may not seem like such a big deal if you go and read the  comments, but fact is, I see it happening on every single piece of Taiwan-related articles. I do recognize it is crucial to reflect on the flaws if we want the country to improve, but laying out the dirt for other people to see certainly does not help the cause. 

So all my fellow Taiwanese netizens, show a little confidence, add a smiley face and say thank you the next time somebody compliments your country.