Educated youths often say the silliest things

There is something about students that I cannot stand. Don't get me wrong; I was one once and I no doubt did as much pontificating and posturing as they do now.

But it's not their fads, it's not their constantly changing lexicon of buzzwords, it's not even their insistence on displaying empty wine and beer bottles in prominent places. Indeed, why recycle an empty bottle of Absolut vodka when it can instead be placed on a shelf and stand testament to the "crazy" amounts of alcohol you can drink in front of endless TV box sets?

No, what I hate about them is the stupid things they say. For supposedly educated people, they come out with some of the dumbest things.

I have a friend who has a degree in history, yet cannot tell me what years World War II started or finished. He thinks Ibiza, a popular party island off Spain, shares a border with Turkey. I have another friend who has a degree in science who believes that a "preview screening" of a new film at the cinema is just the 30-second trailer you see on TV - even though it costs $10 to get in!

By some wicked turn of fate, I have ended up living right across the road from one of Beijing's many universities that cater to foreign students; the majority, I've noticed, coming from Britain and the United States (maybe I am being punished for something I did in a previous life).

There seems to be something about taking these students out of their native environments and plonking them in China that just cranks their ability to irk up to 11.

For one, they seem to have this strange expectation they will be the only foreign faces they see in this city - despite being just one of about 150,000 overseas students who come to China every year.

Then there are those who seem to have difficulty understanding that, if they want to mix more with Chinese people and less with Europeans and Americans, they need to eat somewhere else other than in Western fast food restaurants.

Walking into a branch of Subway close to my office the other day, I overheard three British students - I could tell they were students because of the textbooks in front of them and that they were British because of their beer-stained clothes - complaining that "this place is just full of Westerners".

Looking around, I saw a handful of people chatting in rapid Spanish in the corner and other Westerners dotted around. Then one of the students, with no hint of irony, chimed in: "Yeah, it's awful, isn't it? I came to China to get a taste of the culture, not see a load of foreigners."

Really? What did you expect? I don't know about you but I thought McDonald's, KFC and Subway were kind of known for their uniformity. Did these guys expect they'd be diverse, cultural melting pots in China? Did they think it would be Confucius serving the Big Macs? Did they think Panda Zingers would be all the rage?

I wouldn't mind, but these guys probably passed about five Chinese restaurants to get to Subway.

The piece de resistance, though, must surely be the American post-grad I was harmlessly teasing in a coffee shop on her nation's reputation (in Britain) for being poor at geography.

"Can you point out the United States on a map?" I joked.

"Yeah. Bits of it," she replied.