Impressions of Hsinchu

As I come back from another trip to a foreign country, I am ashamed of many features of my country India. This time it is Taiwan I am comparing ourselves to. I had been in Hsinchu for 12 days for office work and was amazed at many things there, like

• Traffic - very slow with lots of cars and bikes and huge crunch in parking, but no overtaking or wrong driving. Everyone calmly moves along at whatever pace is possible.
• Pedestrians and cyclists are respected, despite no separate cycle lanes. Cars don't swerve this way and that to take up all real estate on the road, and people can walk on roads even if the footpath is crowded.
• Safety - safe to walk around at night (my Taiwanese colleague told me about the horror on the hotel manager's face when he wanted to take a walk at night when in India)
• No loudspeakers - live music and general chatter is all I heard on the streets (and the streets are crowded)
• No jostling, pushing others in a queue. Politeness is the rule visible everywhere.
• Lots of wide roads and highways and still lots of greenery
• Much less fear of thievery - in restaurants you walk in and pick up your own drinks as you want and pay on the way out. Nobody checks your baggage and bills at every shop, not even in the biggest shopping mall.
• Restrooms for the differently-abled, breast-feeding rooms and prayer rooms common at touristy places and shopping malls.
• Lastly - very very clean by Indian standards. Even the small eateries are spotless (yes, they all serve non-vegetarian food since pork, beef and seafood are the most common everyday dishes)

It is hard to believe that this country started developing independently only after the second World War. As I spent time walking around, or with my Taiwanese colleagues I really wondered what is wrong with our country. Why can't we still live in a better way? Why do we keep blaming our past or the current or previous government or various economic changes like industrialization? I saw a modern city fueled by rapid industrialization, with pretty high population and multiple ethnicity - but people working with each other without friction to behave like a single huge organism.
Back home I see a government which gives slogans for cleanliness but does nothing noticeable for that - and various people's groups who keep on criticizing the former. Why can't we all work together instead of against each other?

Disclaimer: I am not unaware of India's contributions to the world, or of the depth of Indian culture (I am a practical student of the latter for many years), nor of industrial pollution in India. And I didn't whine in front of my Taiwanese colleagues about what I have written here.