it not the transition from socialism to capitalism that caused current mainlander to be so uncouth.
the farking cultural revolution throw out the Confucianism, there so many real stories where children put there elders on "struggle sessions" , beat them up and made to do the aeroplane stance on a stool or even worse put placard on them for public humiliations.
Transition from totalitarian socialism to capitalism,
plus suppression/elimination of religious/moral traditions (Confucianim, etc). And certainly, the Cultural Revolution had a very big hand in destroying 5,000 years of heritage, apart from setting China back in its development by a couple of decades.
The Scandinavian countries are socialist on a Christian grounding but are all highly ethical societies. Even the most capitalist Anglo-Saxon nations have a modicum of ethics, again drawing from their Christian heritage. Ditto for capitalist Asian nations like Japan and Taiwan with their Confucian/Buddhist/Taoist/Shinto heritage.
It's not just uncouth behaviour we're talking about. Uneducated folks in agrarian economies like India, South America, and even Communist China are generally uncouth and crude when measured by the standards of urban folks, but they still have heart and a sense of obligation to community. And they're generally more hospitable and much kinder than city slickers. People understand that.
It's the self-centred behaviour, hostile aggression and lack of respect for the rule of law among the commoners that we see in post-Communist China that's giving Chinese tourists a bad name everywhere. Plus the
nouveau riche mentality that money and money alone talks, a mentality that all First World societies have left behind a long time ago.