Just about any decent travel guide (Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Frommers etc) will have a chapter on Anhui Province which also covers some of the basics of life in Hefei.
Attempting to take your question about the locals seriously, I think you'll find that they are just folks: most are warm and friendly, some are not and there is every shade in between.
You will in some places and situations pick-up on a distinct anti-foreigner vibe, just as you will often be accorded courtesies and privileges for merely having a foreign face. I think, though, that many foreigners make the mistake of putting down any hostility or tension in their relationships here to the fact they are expats, when in reality it has as much to do with the fact that they are simply from out-of-town. I've often smiled in sympathy when Hefei-born friends tell me how shabbily they were treated when they first visited, say, Qingdao or Dalian. But the more one gets entwined in the fabric of local life, the more these tensions disappear.
To my mind, Hefei (unlike, say, Shenzhen) is in many ways very 'provincial'. Many sections of the local population have not had extensive dealings with foreigners and there may be a lot of ice to be broken. You may not always succeed, but if you do, people (at heart) seem to me the same here as anywhere else. It is quite easy for foreigners to fall into the trap of seeing things largely in terms of 'us' and 'them', with the expats on one side of a dispute and their Chinese antagonists (usually their bosses) on the other. Irrespective of how one feels about them, it is important to always see individuals, which is why I bridled heavily at your request that we give the Locals some kind of collective score.
One of the most frequent complaints I hear from locals about foreigners is, 'They do not speak the language, so we cannot talk to them.' Apart from the basic decencies (politeness, friendliness etc), most of your social success will depend on how well you come to grips with the language and culture, social norms and expectations. This is especially important if you wish to break out of social circles centered largely on expats and English-speaking Chinese. Here, I don't think there is a lot of objective advice anyone can give you, and a lot of the chat I hear about guanxi, mianzi and toasting etc goes over my head. Eyes, ears and common sense should really be enough to get by with.
All things considered, I give the Locals 9/10.
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Topic: Hefei rating? (Read 4946 times)