How to make friends with foreigner?
amandamo
April 24, 2009, 04:07 PM posted in General DiscussionJust the other day, I was in a bookshop and spotted a volume entitled How to Make Friends with Foreigners by Li Yang of Crazy English fame. Naturally, as a foreigner who has been living in China for a year, I was curious to see what kind of advice a Chinese writer was giving on this matter.
One piece of advice really grabbed my attention and, I must say, made me feel quite annoyed. In Li’s opinion, foreigners are an “opportunity” to improve your oral English; whenever you see a foreigner, you should practice speaking English to him/her. The writer goes on to say that if the foreigner doesn’t want to answer your questions, then he/she is a rude person who you wouldn’t want to spend time with anyway. I think this counsel is not only incorrect, but also potentially damaging to relations between Chinese and foreigners in China.
Like most other laowai living in China, I know how isolated one can sometimes feel living amid a culture far removed from our own familiar ways. However, most of the time this cultural isolation is something I simply accept as part of being here. I am, after all, here to learn about the people and the language of China and if I really hated this place then I would go home! So far my time in China has been very rewarding. I have improved my Chinese language skills, learnt about one of the most fascinating, swiftly developing countries in the world today and made some very close Chinese friends.
Unfortunately, I have also come across many Chinese people who view me purely as an “opportunity” to improve their oral English under the guise of making friends. I have experienced people following me home from town to my college flat and then harassing me to teach them English or practice English with them. I have had complete strangers thrusting articles, manuals and speeches in my face, insisting that I help them with the English translation. I have had people asking me to assist with immigration applications to other countries. All of these people have claimed at the time that what they chiefly wanted was to make friends with me. There was even one person at the weekly English Corner that I run at college who, after plying me with non-stop questions for half an hour, became very angry when I politely asked him to give other people a chance to speak. He puffed himself up like a peacock and informed me that he was simply trying to be my friend. www.rr365.com
He may well have thought he was trying to be my friend, but where I come from you don’t build friendships by pestering and badgering another person. Friendship for a lot of Westerners is about spending time with someone whose company you genuinely enjoy. It’s not about opportunities or personal advantage. The Chinese friends I have made while living here have been genuine friends to me; we enjoy each other’s company for its own sake. In this way, we’ve not only learnt a good deal about each other’s culture but also about each other as individuals.
I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t approach foreigners at all. However, I do think that it’s important to question your own motives. If you truly want to make friends with someone from a different country, who could possibly object? On the other hand, if your only motive is to “use” the foreigner as a way of improving your English, then it’s quite likely that the foreigner will be able to see through you - and will definitely not want to spend time with you.
So if there’s any advice to give on making and keeping friendships with foreigners, I would say that it is this: Treat foreigners as people, not opportunities. Expect to make friendships gradually, over a period of time, not instantly. And don’t ply foreigners with lots and lots of disparate questions. At times, this approach comes across as confusing and unnatural.
Finally, I would suggest that if you really want to make friends with a foreigner, then you do so because you are genuinely interested in the person. We all know that true friendships stand the test of time. If your only reason for making friends with a foreigner is to upgrade your English, then you will probably find that you don’t have a foreign friend for long.
RJ
April 27, 2009, 11:16 PMbarbs,
re the pm's - sometimes its nice to feel loved, even if it is a scam. :-) As for the language pleas, like you, mostly I give them the benefit of the doubt. I tend to make friends easily but I have noticed the Europeans and Brits are harder to approach without a reference of some sort. If they wont talk to me I usually just say "F george Bush", and its beer all around. ;-)
sushan
April 25, 2009, 04:01 AMGoing back to the original article, something written by 'Li Yang of Crazy English fame' might be expected to have an English-learning angle to the friend making, right?
The author has many Chinese friends and is not saying foreingers don't want to make friends with Chinese. He's saying that the ways some Chinese people try to make friends with foreigners are off-putting, and gave a few examples.
tina2858
April 27, 2009, 01:27 PMi feel very shock on it ! i am from chinese,and i like to make frends.I like to make friends, but it is not based on interests. I think a lot of things we can not make generalizations, because they may be cultural differences, so cause different way of thinking.If you really have this kind of Chinese friends, I really am sorry.
I admit that I pay foreign friends want to improve my English, but not as you say to the use of foreign friends. I believe that the Chinese people is very sincere friend.
if you have question ,please contact with me.
henning
April 27, 2009, 01:36 PMWell, you will not make any friends here by flooding this forum with your spam messages. This type of behaviour certainly has the stale smell of begging and distracts from what we are all here for.
If you are really interested to meet other people and learn here, you are welcome to help us out with our day-to-day Chinese questions and bring in your voice constructively into the discussions. After a while you will earn first the respect and later maybe even the friedship of some of the users here.
tina2858
April 27, 2009, 01:45 PMYes, if you learn Chinese in the course of difficulties, you can always ask me, there are my e-mail address. If can help , I will be very happy.
It seems you have very bad impact on the Chinese people, I am a bit sad.
antony73
April 27, 2009, 01:59 PM@henning, I couldn't agree with you more.
Over the past two and a half years I've met many Chinese people who share a common interest, learning each others language. Originally our time spent together was based on learning, not friendship. Naturally though, a few have become friends, very good friends. That's how friendships work, and that's how they're meant to work.
tina2858
April 27, 2009, 02:08 PMTo have one or two true friends, I have been very happy.
henning
April 27, 2009, 02:13 PMantony, I am in grumpy mode today. ;)
Over the weekend, this forum has been buried in this type of posts. Very distracting. Now contrast this with the helpful, friendly, and utterly unobtrusive way Cassie has contributed here.
BTW: Sometimes the hardcore version of the "做朋友， 互相帮助， 互相学习" post enters my CPod personal message folder - with descriptions of personal and physical properties. Obviously, a good figure and a general "healthy" physical condition without any inherited illnesses (!) foster an effective language exchange.
tina2858
April 27, 2009, 02:18 PM@henning,You feel tough, really afraid of you! ! l
urbandweller
April 24, 2009, 04:49 PMwell thanks Amanda! As a 老外i do appreciate it when a Chinese person is genuinely interested in being friends with me...not just for learning English.
BUT the same thing can be said for us too! Beware of the 老外 that just wants to use you for conversation purposes. I have tried to be careful about this...So I have started online conversations with some Chinese that seemed interesting to me. But honestly, I have started talking to some for conversation reasons too. Eventually i have found that some really do become friends and others just fade away. Some I talked to once or twice and never really heard from again...but then there are others who have stuck and whom i talk to more than my own family and i consider them good friends!
I believe that if you are meant to be friends, then it will work out and each person will make an effort to call or email. The reason i know my friends are real is that they make an effort too. Relatiionships are all about giving and taking. If not, then you are just being used!
tina2858
April 27, 2009, 02:36 PM哦 ，谢谢。我错了。
我英语很差的。都是在旁边边查字典边打字呢！！真的抱歉，错误一大堆。
还有，我是第一次来这个网站的！真的，我保证，我没有说谎！
henning
April 27, 2009, 02:48 PMmiantiao, thanks for the support. But I was probably indeed a bit too harsh...
@Tina: 还有， 你不用怕我。 You don't need to be afraid of me.
RJ
April 27, 2009, 02:58 PMHenning
I was going to say, dont mistake naive for evil. its not her fault you got a bunch of pm offers - and I thought I was the only one getting them :-) They lied to me.
zhenlijiang
April 27, 2009, 03:00 PMi sympathize with you guys! but think of those personal solicitations as the price you pay for being way more attractive than me (or has something to do w/using your photo as your avatar?).
i've had ONE. "a single girl" who wanted to know me better. no descriptions of physical properties, age or anything else, just a name (not a chinese name, and one which sounded suspiciously ... ambiguous).
miantiao
April 27, 2009, 03:03 PM@henning
not really mate, i don't think you were harsh at all, just frank and honest.
my inbox receives on average a few a week, in english, with physical attributes as well some of the time.
however, i really would like more chinese to take part in cpod, practicing written english as well as correcting poddies' mandarin mistakes, but as yet(and tina has proven it actually by not correcting my mistakes, and there are mistakes in what i wrote. i corrected hers!) most stay the week and move on to greener patures.
sushan
April 27, 2009, 03:10 PM@henning, not too harsh at all, quite the opposite
I don't have a bad impression of Chinese people. I do have a pretty bad impression of friendship spammers, both the virtual and human flesh style. Thankfully they do not represent regular Chinese people, even if they claim to.
bababardwan
April 27, 2009, 10:54 PMSure there are those that will just want to use you,but I tend to think most people have good intentions and believe in a presumption of innocence.Also language barriers can confound things.I'm always a little touched at an offer of friendship.Maybe I'm just naive too.
Hey,I've got some of those PM's too ,but never with the physical attributes.I guess avatars of old men and creepy dogs just doesn't cut it.
miantiao
April 27, 2009, 02:28 PM@henning
说得真好！
上面的杂文指出他在中国所经历过有些意料之外的事情使他感到郁闷， 我个人也经历过。
@tina 你对henning说了 '好像中国人给你留了不好的印象，我有一点难过了’ 'it seems you have a very bad impact on the chinese people...' 还有， 这句的意思跟你想说的意思相反。更好应该说 ‘it seems you have a very bad impression of chinese people...'. 我才不相信，你是新来的朋友，一点都不认识他， 你觉得要是你说的确切他为何来这里的网站学习，而来的很久的时间。你也一句中文在这里都没写下来。说话要算话喽！
英文里不可说 impact，反而应该说impression.
amandamo
April 24, 2009, 04:34 PMthis article is writen by a foreigner .
After reading it ,i feel very shocked and know why some foreigner don't like make friend with chinese.
in my opinion ,the major reason is some chinese only want to improve their English by making friend with foreigner!
But every coins have two side.so i want to tell foreigners that there are also have some chinese(like me) who really want to make friend with you and share their happy with you!they just want to understand you !!
a ordinary chinese:Amanda