To add on this line: I was once having a Dimsum dinner with a friend's friend. The guy was French. He held the discussion for 15 mn about his trip to this island in Indonesia, and the sole purpose of the vacation report was to say how bad it was, from the shitty weather to the horrible hotel to the masochistic food.
I have spent 10 years in China, and sometime my own cultural atavisms do surprise me. Another example is the kiss-on-cheeks things, which I'm quite not used to anymore.
I think a lot of Canadian's are the same way, but maybe a bit more polite and in a light way.
I watch This Hour has 22 Minutes, and I have never witness such great satire based purely on criticism and exaggerations of reality.
You can go into someone's home and disagree with their taste in anything. It provides interesting, open discussions.
"Criticising is a kind of national sport" is dead on. The French do whine a lot. </irony>
(As context, I'm a french Canadian with lots of French people as friends.)