What I saw in America

I loved the first chapter of this book, where Chesterton discusses his experiences at the American consulate. Later observations are also recognizable, for example Chesterton's discussion about the difference in humor between the US and England.
The main idea from this book seems to be that it is okay to laugh about foreign things, as long as you do not assume that those things are foolish as well as foreign.

For in this matter the human mind is the victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause of nearly all international dislikes. A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues. His own faults are things with which he is so much at home that he at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is so faintly conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious of the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they are there so that he does not see that they are not there.