Chinese culture being less accepting of foreigners has nothing to do with it being a "frontier". If anything, it's the opposite. The US is a relatively young nation populated almost entirely by immigrants or descendants of immigrants. China is a long-established nation with a relatively homogeneous population (90% Han Chinese).
I moved to New York "permanently", thinking it would last, but I found myself without a job a few months later and ended up on a flight to Beijing.
I think my time in New York was negatively colored by having an office right in Times Square, but even so it was a really meaningful experience and a great place to be in. You definitely understand why it's the city that never sleeps, and it felt much more like a melting pot than California did. I enjoyed listening to and engaging with street preachers, I was grateful for all the talented musicians in the subway, and I never ran out of exciting new cuisines to try.
On the negative side, though, I did feel that New Yorkers (and by this point in my life, Americans in general) could be hard to get close to - easy to approach, but hard to connect with. I don't know who I would have turned out to be if I had stayed in New York, but I imagine that would have been a great adventure of its own.
Beijing feels similar to New York in many ways, and many expats that leave Beijing opt to move to New York. Facebook groups with hundreds of members help ex-Beijingers congregate in both New York and San Francisco, and I don't know that that's a coincidence.
Maybe, if nothing else, I want to argue that Beijing deserves to be in the international spotlight and cultural consciousness the same way that New York and San Francisco and London are.
>On the negative side, though, I did feel that New Yorkers (and by this point in my life, Americans in general) could be hard to get close to - easy to approach, but hard to connect with.
I have found this to be true, especially after living in Germany and finding somewhat the opposite: people are hard to approach, but once you get to know them, you connect with them on a much deeper level than I ever did with people in the US. But of course, these generalizations certainly don't apply to all Americans/Germans.