In general, Asians appreciate and cultivate aspects of Western culture more than any other non-white group. My Indian friends went to British schools and they read all the same books I did growing up, even American authors like Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I listen to a classical music station daily and most of the hot young classical artists these days are Chinese. But in the time I spent abroad, among other things, I became convinced that the idea of adoring nature is a product of the West. Before Edmund Hillary made his summit of Mt. Everest and made the Himalayas into a world-class destination for mountaineers, Nepali and Tibetan ethnic people did not go mountain-climbing. They regard it as dangerous and foolhardy. They only do it nowadays days if they are working for the tourist industry. They make magnificent trekking guides. They will risk their lives for you. But trekking is never something they would do for recreation.

If you get stranded high on a mountain and you're a foreign tourist, they'll send a helicopter rescue for you. If you're Nepali, they'll leave you up there; you were supposed to have sense enough not to go there in the first place.

The majority of trekkers who visit Nepal come from the United States, Europe, and Australia, with a small percentage from Japan. White people of Northern European extraction have a solid reputation for being the only people who would spend big bucks on a vacation where you will most certainly get dysentery, pick leeches off you, and possibly even get killed.
I've trekked in remote areas of the Himalayas, which is as close as you can get to outer space without leaving the planet. The ethnic people there are very suspicious of foreigners. Unless you're a scientist or a missionary, they can't make sense of why you're there. Why would anyone go out of their way just to look at beautiful scenery? My brother-in-law once made a cross-country road trip and drove 100 miles out of his way to visit the Grand Canyon. Afterwards he said, what's the big deal? It's just a big hole in the ground.â€

Most definitely all Asians are not like him. But I used to think that being awestruck by nature was something hardwired into human beings. Now, I think of it as primarily a feature of white people and my experience has consistently borne that out.