[whycombinatore]

Strongly disagree. I am not an American, but I am aware about Hong Kong, but know nothing about, say, Burkina Faso. The reason is pretty simple - HK is going downhill (from my perspective) while there isn't much of a change in Burkina Faso, although I would rather be in HK than Burkina Faso. In other words we react to what we see as "negative change" from our own perspective.