I found that sentiment deeply off-putting, and I say that as an American in Taipei right now (which seems thematically similar).

The author says 99% of things written are unavailable to him -- and I'm sure it's even more of the spoken word around him. If you subtract out 99% of communication, and all the deep relationships and casual understandings that make a community, yeah, I guess every place starts looking the same.

But boy howdy, that stuff is really valuable to some people, and not just people with nothing else going on in their lives.