A survey conducted by the Beijing Committee of the Communist Youth League has revealed that nearly 80 percent of young foreigners in Beijing are interested in Chinese culture, especially the food, operas and holidays, with over 60 percent having developed a fondness for the city, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The report said that the survey was conducted on foreigners, aged between 18 and 35 years old, who had stayed in the city for more than six months. The committee who undertook the survey distributed 900 questionnaires and conducted 60 in-depth interviews of the respondents.
According to the report, nearly 34 percent of the respondents cited cultural environment as the capital city's most attractive aspect, followed by work opportunities (21.7 percent) and friendly people (20.2 percent).
The survey further revealed that for foreigners in Beijing, language is not a problem since 78.9 percent of the foreigners can speak Chinese and 43.7 percent of them are fluent speakers. In addition, 61.6 percent of the foreigners said they also get along well with Chinese people.
The report said that one-third of foreigners surveyed have been in Beijing for less than a year, while 39.5 percent have spent over eight years in Beijing and expressed their intention to stay even longer.
The majority of foreigners in Beijing come from one of 86 countries or regions, and the most common foreign nationalities that can be found are Korean (18.6 percent), American (12.0 percent), Japanese (6.4 percent) and Canadian (6.1 percent), the survey showed.
Europeans and Americans generally find Chinese culture attractive and are open to experiencing it, while other Asians such as Japanese, Singaporeans and Koreans have a deeper recognition and easily connect with Chinese values.
The survey also showed where young foreigners are concentrated according to their purpose. Based on the survey information, most of the industry employees can be found in Zhongguancun and Yizhuang. While foreign public officials mostly live and work around Jianguomen and Sanlitun, foreign students are mostly concentrated in Haidian District, home to a large number of universities.