[jee1shi]

> Curiously the places with the least foreigners are the most xenophobic ones and vice versa.

That's actually the standard. It's easy to be xenophobic when someone has very little exposure to other cultures. Once they get exposed over a long period of time, people realise that they are just people too.

[LudwigNagasena]

It’s also easy to be tolerant towards someone you don’t have to interact with. Once you get exposed to other cultures you realize that they are different.

[blowski]

I guess the realisation we're talking about is going from thinking "they eat human babies" to "they drink different types of tea".

[blowski]

Exactly. When your main exposure to other cultures is via tabloid media versions of those cultures, it's not surprising that you believe strange things about them.