England is a land where ladies take tea and men wear top hats, Chinese students believe before coming to Britain.

The reality, they discover, is a far cry from the world of Jane Austen. While older people are friendly and polite and laws are respected, Chinese students claim that they have often been attacked in the streets and are seen as “cash cows” by larger universities seeking to make money.

Britain is the second most popular university destination for overseas students, behind America. Last year young people from mainland China and Hong Kong made up one in five of 330,000 students from outside the United Kingdom studying at British universities. Cultural Transfer, a study of the experiences of 160 of the 50,775 mainland Chinese students who came to Britain last year, was prompted by the rising numbers of Chinese who are spending more than £20,000 a year to study abroad.

One of the most astonishing findings was that most Chinese students relied on the classics and word of mouth to inform themselves about Britain, according to the author of the study, Greg Philo, of Glasgow University.

“People use the internet for information on prices, but mostly they rely on Dickens and Pride and Prejudice and news images, often about the Royal Family, as a source,” he told The Times. “Just one person mentioned advertising.”

Professor Philo said that he found that students overcame their initial culture shock and left with a positive view. “They like the critical edge at university. They’re surprised by the demand to think for themselves,” he said.

Before Ying Huang, 23, came to London in June last year, she believed that England would be a “garden of thinking”. Studying at the Architectural Association’s school of architecture, she said that she was astonished by its young people.

“The family I stayed with were very kind and showed me around London, but the young people I met in the bars just partied all night long,” she said.

In spite of the horror of boorishness, others in the study welcomed Britain’s multi-ethnic culture. Manners, they said, were a “good British export”, and they praised the free education and healthcare systems.

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