Don't generalize, people are individuals, judge people individually on their own merits. Culturally there can be some things you can generalize as many are exposed to said culture throughout their lives and things get normalized. But not everyone will follow everything in their own culture.

"x race are some of the smartest people" is a dumb generalized statement, being japanese doesn't automatically make anyone smart. Human intelligence vary, culture and educational systems have an impact but smart people are smart regardless. Whale hunting is down to bad education regarding the subject, not due to people being intelligent or not in general. People are people regardless of where they come from.