I just read this from HFCAMPO in his Xinjiang - Travel thread:

"Travelling to Xinjiang is like visiting another country. The people are remarkable, they talk to one another, they laugh, they smile. They behave this way amongst each other and also with complete strangers."

Which got me thinking: people from which provinces surprised you with their friendliness or unfriendliness?

If you wanted to live anywhere within China and the only concern was the attitude of the people (and perhaps the smog) where would you want to live?

People in Guandong are friendly to strangers and willing to help. Hong Kong people are very civilized and helpful to strangers.

Least helpful and outright rude = Kunming and Hunan.

Another 'got you' thread. Ha.Ha.

I asked a similar question a decade ago on the chinadaily forum.

There someone said Kunming people where relatively friendly and people from Guandong relatively nasty. I don't know what to believe now.

This is a real question I have Liumingke.

that's because all perception is relative. in this case, everyone's perceptions are based on a few personal encounters.

i am in guangdong now. guangdong natives, guangzhuo people in particular who speak the local dialect are friendly to foreigners but nasty to people from the north who can not speak the local dialect because a large proportion of organised crime and prostitute, petty crime involve people from the 'North.' so if you look chinese and ask a local cantonese for street direction in mandarin, the local will ignore you, sometimes even with contempt. my wife speaks mandarin but can not speak as good cantonese as i could, gets ignore most of the time. so it depends, if you ask the chinese from the north, you will get different answer. hahahhahahahah

tibetan people are straight forward and friendly that you can not say the same of the people from WuBei, WuHan in particular tho. the chinese has it "天上九头鸟,地下湖北佬" not without good reason. hahahha my own experience only.

I always thought of the Wuhanese as very decent people. People from Zhejiang on the other hand. They have a VERY high opinion of themselves, look down their nose at people not from the province and would step over their grandmothers if it meant making money. Their pockets are also substantially longer than their legs. Every province I have been to the locals have had poor opinions about the Zhejiang people. The other one I have heard is Henan. The saying that 99 out of a 100 cheats are from Henan and their HQ is in (I can't remember the city, not Zhengzhou though). Never been to Henan though so can't comment further. I did see a job add once that said "no people from Henan" and was told this is pretty common.

I always thought people in Beijing were pretty polite, it's stuck with me that.

I can't answer your question, but I certainly have not found Kunming people to be unhelpful or particularly rude. I found men, in particular, in Sichuan to be, not so much rude or unhelpful, but to make a particularly big deal about foreigners (e.g., a lot of "Look, a laowai!", etc.). I found it annoying, although I got used to it. On the other hand, I found it easier to meet women there, and make friends with them (not just a matter of sexual relations etc.) I lived in Sichuan for 1&1/2 years.
Note that I lived in a city where there were not a lot of foreigners, and so the Kunming syndrome of foreigners speaking English with Chinese and with each other whenever there was more than one foreigner in the group was not a big problem.
I don't find Hong Kong people particularly helpful. Taiwanese, yes, at least if you speak Chinese - lived in each place about 6 years.

The most 'civilised' people are probably in the rich cities - Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou. Nastiest? Hainan! Having said that, we met one or two nice people there too. Of course as someone said its not really fair to judge people on what province they are from, there is probably as much variation in people/personalities within provinces as between.

Shanghai ren are the worst people in China: proud, conflictual (violent), careless, paced.
Beijing ren in contrast, are more cultural, friendly and balanced.

Taiwanese are about the nicest but Taiwan isn't China.

Honorable mention to Hong Kongers/Guandong ren and Jiangsu people (Suzhou specially).
Source: 5 Years in China having travelled extensively here.