Just Say Nō

I’ve been reading Asian literature (reviews to follow). The most important twentieth-century Chinese author, Lu Xun, was unknown to me and, I’m sure, to everyone I know; a collection of Japanese Nō plays, the most relevant Japanese literature, I found in a yellowed volume; Kenzaburo Oe may be a Nobel Prize winner, he’s no Stephen King either.
Why are school children in the West not taught at least the basics of the cultures of a few billion people? Why is it that being interested in it brands me a snob? Shouldn’t not being interested in it brand me a bigot?