Mine is that they're hard working. There's a big difference between spending a long day at work and actually being productive. Most teachers are forced to spend long hours in the office when there's no actual work that needs doing and then on other occasions there's tonnes of it to get through. What I find most fascinating is how much more efficient a Chinese workplace could be if they simply disposed of the need to undergo so much of what must be unnecessary paperwork.

This must be the same with banking. I don't think I've met any foreigners who currently work in banking in China, but I've tried to send money from the banks both here and in Hong Kong to Australia, the US and New Zealand. I will never do any banking business in China. The bank screwed up my transaction, produced a false receipt from Deutsche Bank when the money was supposed to be sent to New York Mellon, and then kept the fee. It took them two hours to complete the transaction when it would have taken 8 minutes in the US or Hong Kong. The Chinese bank employees are masters of looking busy, but if you need them to do something, it takes forever.

I'm sure you have your own stories from various fields to validate my attempts to dispel this myth once and for all, but I'm more interested in hearing other myths that WESTERN people believe about China which went up in smoke for you.