I know it's never good to generalize, particularly about a specific group of people, so I make these observations only from my own personal experiences.
Over the years I worked with several Asians from Korea, China, Japan and the Philippines. They were all lovely people who would go out of their way to help you if you should need it, but the ones I knew also tended to be rather high strung perfectionists who often seemed on the verge of a minor breakdown, even when the cause of their distress turned out to be somewhat inconsequential in the scheme of things.
However, I guess I should emphasis that since I saw them only in a work environment, that probably had a distinct bearing on the certain behaviors of which I am commenting.
“high strung perfectionists”
Yes, that was also my experience when I was assigned a girl from Hong Kong as my freshman year college room mate. She was a nice girl and very friendly. When she got a grade that was not perfect, she was very hard on herself. It was a pity. Such a brilliant girl and she only saw her tiny mistake that gave her an A instead of an A+.
Having spent about 8 years in Asia, I think the biggest difference is when western people get angry, it tends to be a gradual process. There is some build up to it. Over here in Asia, it is much more common to see people just snap. I think it is the societal pressures which dictate how they must behave in public which doesn't allow a release... and then when the release finally does happen it tends to be completely out of proportion to the event which triggered it.
It isn't a problem if you are used to it and know what to look out for, but it does get a number of casual visitors to Asia in trouble. I have seen it many times.