I don't thin it is so bad there really. I went to Qinghai a while back and it was too much in some of the remote parts of that area. People just burned a hole through em and my Chinese wife. Turning chairs around to face us better, like we were a TV set or something. Weird.

Some issue here though, but don't worry too much. A while back in our neighborhood we were eating and two female students at a table in front of me and behind my wife were just looking too hard. The girl facing me kept saying something to her friend, then the other girl would turn and look. It was getting a bit uncomfortable. Finally I did something (I don't know what) and the girl facing me said something to her friend yet again and she turned around to look and I finally gave a big goofy wave and said "HI". She turned around and the the other girl looked at her food and never looked back at me. Totally bizarre. Like they felt they could just watch me or us eat, but if I said hello that was not something they were interested in. Not the first time, but in the end that is about as bad as it gets here.

I was in Kunming, Dali, Li Jiang and Shangri-La two weeks ago. I spent 14 days between them.

I found that while most people in Kunming were ok towards you but you will always get stared at in China, only that the amount of staring is inversely proportional to the number of laowai that have been in that area. Yunnan is a very poor (and considered a backwards province) and so people do tend to look at you as moneybags.

There were a lot of scamers starting with the taxi driver at the airport. I was travelling with wife, her sister and a 15 month old son, and after finally getting a taxi the driver tried to pack us all in the back and try to get an extra passenger in the front. I refused. 100 meters from the taxi rank the car miraculously stops working ("engine trouble") and car turns off and won't restart. I start getting annoyed and tell my wife to translate to him that I'll drive. Anyway, we stop and he gets out and calls some security guy to come and help push the car. So me and the security guy have to push while he pretends to start it. 150 meters later we finally stop and I start yelling at him to get out so I can start it. Some policemen are smoking at the exit of the airport and my wife calls them over. She tells the police to check the car and explains what happened to them. Policeman gets in and starts it up first go. Tensions come down and he is instructed to drive us. Police take down his details and we carry on for a 50 minute drive to Kunming. Bad first impression.

We went on a guided tour to Lijiang and on the way because of the suggestion of my wife's best friend's friend's friend, who owned a travel agency and so then we could get a good deal. The guided tour was so terrible that we had to get off and demand refund (long story).

The first hotel were terrible and had filthy squat toilets in the half star rooms. The food was inedible. The "guide" was a scammer and we always were told not to buy jade or sivler from this place or this place because it was all fake. Lo and behold we had to go on unannounced stops to jade factories or silver factories that coincidently were in the same buldings as the companies operations (big sign on the side of the building).

The rest of the trip was really good. We did our own thing after the first 2 days and Lijiang was amazing. The local Naxi people were very honest, friendly and genuinely nice to me. You can hire a taxi for 100 - 150RMB for the day. So many things to do and pleasant surroundings. Not ruined yet by too many laowai. I probably saw 5-10 of "them" per day.

People in CHina stare at roadkill, fender benders, public arguments, anything that's different. Just beware the pickpocket teams that stare at you...

I agree with you Tonyaod, this topic does come up rather frequently. I am surprised that someone who has interest in coming to Kunming does NOT have other questions other than if people will stare or if he can find a chinese gf. If needles asks about where to buy a scooter or helmet I will go bonkers.

I also have my bad days when the staring and the hellooooooooooing can really annoy me. But, then I remember that it's relatively harmless compared to what happens sometimes to foreigners in my country (England). I've seen people get beaten up, spat at, called racial slurs, refused admission to places and other much worse things than what happens here. I'd much rather be an Englishman in China than a Chinese man in England!

Well, of course this is something that comes up a lot because it's something which people are interested in talking about, which you can see from the number of responses. It's a reasonable question for someone thinking about coming to China. So if it's irritating, simply don't read.

Anyway here is my take - before I came to China I had spent 6 months in India some time before. So I was expecting it to be the same but actually I was pleasantly surprised. People do stare a lot but it's nothing like in India, where it can actually feel quite intimidating and I've had people stop in front of me when I'm walking in the street so they can stare. Also if you stare back at them they'll keep staring, whereas here in Kunming they'll almost always look away. In fact usually when I get a bunch of village idiots stopping to stare at me I like to stand in front of them and stare idiotically right back and they always move on.

Unless I'm in a really bad mood the staring doesn't bother me, because I know it's only friendly curiosity. The "helloooo" can bother me a bit but as someone suggested, a pair of headphones and sunglasses can come in very handy here.

Hmm..everyone seems to have similar sort of experiences and I'm in the same boat.

Speaking of the "hellos" they have become proportionally less in the past year compared even to 2009 when I first travelled to Kunming or 2010 when I first stayed long term. I have also noticed a vast increase in the number of foreigners coming to and residing in Kunming since 2011.

I have noticed that walking down a street in Kunming, most people neither care about foreigners, nor stare. Only a small minority of people even say "helloooo", which would be considered a very boring and lame joke in the west, even if we reversed it to Chinese and made it "nihaoooo" it still wouldn't be considered funny in our sarcastic western societies. Still, I haven't experienced a "hello" since last year and it generally comes from small children these days or occassionally from groups of teenagers or university students, never people older than about 25 or 30.

Anyway, I agree with the commentors about travelling in other rural parts of SE Asia and even in parts of China where there are lots of non-Han minorities - the stares are either very rare, subtle or even largely non-existant. I have spent many years travelling throughout every country in SE Asia multiple times including rural areas. Irrespective of the mode of travel (car, bus, train, plane, minivan etc.) and whether I'm in the countryside or not, few locals are interested in my presence and the vast majority are used to seeing foreigners even if they're not that common in a particular area.

For some reason Han Chinese in mainland China however still act quite weird in the presence of foreigners...must be a cultural thing, because as I said in every other country in the region, even Myanmar, which has fewer foreigners than Yunnan the reaction is usually very subtle or non-existant.

@vexed, those of us who have been surrounded by an angry, racist, mob know that it is all part of the same spectrum. What you contrast, should instead be seen as an interconnected problem.

I also find that a very sizeable proportion of people who stare do not stop once I start staring back.

@yuanyangren I get the hellooooo joke directed at me daily, probably because I spend a lot of time in traffic (on a scooter), or walking around.

@ All,

I wonder why it's the trend for so many people to end their posts with some kind of "well, but it's ok" or "it's not as bad as somewhere else, etc." It seems to me that this kind of topic comes up because, while not deadly or anything, it really is one of the most unattractive things about living here. It is clear that it can even escalate into violence on occasion, were the laowai to stop and tell off the people who cat called at him. We can explain all of the causal factors in detail, and also notice that there are bigger fish to fry, but it doesn't change that it's no fun and that future residents should know about it before they make the move.

@aaronb
You asked, "I wonder why it's the trend for so many people to end their posts with some kind of "well, but it's ok" or "it's not as bad as somewhere else, etc." ?"

In China I believe that I am the one that is out of step.

We dont do this anymore.To be honest,we used to stare a lot at foreigners,but there are an increasing number of foreigners here so we dont do this anymore,hihi.