This is just the trope of the "wise and mystical oriental"
Btw. medieval Europe, or classical Greece, just to give two non-Eastern examples, also had many of the characteristics I mentioned in my comment: a strong communal spirit and shared symbolic life which connects one to a coherent and poetic view of the world. But pointing out ways cultures very different from ours might have been superior in some senses to ours is one of the most triggering moves, especially on a techie-oriented forum like this one.