They, really are not "a curious bunch of people". I'm calling it a weird implication because it's reductionist and kind of fascistic to try to write off huge groups of people as being inherently different.
For all the talk of individualism, for example, it's pretty easy to blindly tell a random American from a random French with great statistical success just for their opinions on things. And those two cultures aren't even as different as each is with Japanese culture...