The only way we say one culture is "collectivist" and another "individualistic" is if we cherrypick data or history?
How we branded ourselves as an "individualistic" culture when for 500 years, our identifying cultural contribution was collectivist racism. The fact of the matter is that the west conquered the world because we were far more collectivist than anyone else. It wasn't the "rugged individual" who conquered africa, america, asia, etc. It certainly wasn't the "rugged individual" that wiped out natives, enslaved africans, etc.
It's funny how we took 500 years of our collectivism and then dumped it on the japanese, chinese, etc and branded ourselves as "individualistic".
All nations are individualists and collectivistic at the same time.