It depends...Indeed many foreigners say Chinese is difficult,but I've seen some foreigners(English speaker) who can speak Chinese very fluently.If you find a good mathod I don't think it's difficult.

jaja i think its difficult

by the way, if you want to learn classical mandarin, you 'd better go to beijing. in hongkong, they also speak cantonese; in xiamen, the local language is similar with taiwan. So if you want to learn not only mandarin but also another local language, xiamen and hongkong are better choices. because the culture in beijing, xiamen, hongkong are so different from each other that you just choose the one you like. maybe a travel to these cities before your study is necessary.

as you mentioned around Asia, i think universities in hongkong or Singapore are better than other areas. Well-known by us, is Hongkong University. I checked and they said the Hongkong City University （ http://www.cityu.edu.hk/cityu/index-sc.htm） and Hongkong Polytechnic University （http://www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/polyu/main/main_s.php） are good at this major(financial), and the financial of Hongkong City University is the fifth in Asia. if you come to China mainland, the top 5 universities are: 1. 复旦大学(http://www.ao.fudan.edu.cn/ ) －shanghai 2 北京大学 （http://www.pku.edu.cn/ ） －beijing 3 南开大学 （ www.nankai.edu.cn ）－shanghai 4 中国人民大学(http://www.ruc.edu.cn/ ) －beijing 5 厦门大学（http://www.xmu.edu.cn/）－xiamen when you choose the university, except the major, you should also take the city itself into account.

i am a chinese boy but i also think chinese is difficult