There is absolutely no way that New York is the most polite city in the world. There is absolutely no way Paris is ranked one of the most courteous. Have those surveyors been to a bank or a department store in Paris? Parisians do not know the meaning of the word “service”.

Did that magazine surveyor come to Tokyo? The Japanese are the most polite people in the universe. Tokyo is not even on their list so how can they make these smug conclusions on incomplete data?

You cannot base the meaning of “politeness” on picking up papers and opening doors. The Reader’s Digest criteria is so crude.