To answer this question, people may say "I came here to live as a foreigner, but I don't want to integrate into the local society", "I plan to return to China in the future, but I want to have this different experience", or "I want to stay and work, which is more conducive to networking and paving the way for future employment".
These reasons are all right and true, and I always think so. However, when I reflected later, I found that when I made friends with Americans and people from other countries with such a "why" understanding, I made acquaintances on the phone or in Ins, but I didn't make friends that I could really talk to.
Why?
Because for a long time, I used "we China people" and "they foreigners" to distinguish these two groups in my mind. I regard myself as an outsider in front of them. And in my heart, I treat them as outsiders.
Sometimes, they become a process that I want to "integrate into the local circle". Now I think putting the cart before the horse is also a false proposition, not the result itself. Later, I gradually found that how to answer this question has a lot to do with how we define our identity and community.
I never opened my heart myself, so why should I expect others to open their hearts?
0 1. More and more * * * isomorphic.
Before the age of fifteen, almost all of them lived in the same neighborhood in their hometown. Most of them are friends who have known each other since kindergarten. The degree of homogenization is very high. I think the biggest difference between people is their parents' unit and constellation.
The university went to Beijing and suddenly came into contact with friends from all over the country. It's the first time I heard friends in Northeast China call the patch panel, and friends in Guangdong call the hair dryer an air duct. I thought it was a small language when I heard a friend from Taizhou calling home. The first time I heard of Regan Noodles in Wuhan, a pot of fresh food in Shanghai, pot-stewed meat in the northeast and snail powder in Guangxi; The first time I met Manchu, Miao and Uygur. For the first time, it was found that Beijing people used carrots instead of lettuce to make fish-flavored shredded pork. Freshman experienced a cultural shock, only to find that there are so many differences between people besides constellations.
It is also after leaving my hometown that I often feel the identity of "I am from XX" and "I am from the North". Growing up, I never thought about these two identities, because everyone around me is the same.
However, the greater the differences between the friends I meet, the more I learn to put aside these external differences to understand everyone's heart-to understand everyone's hobbies, life values, happiness and distress in life; At the same time, try to understand each other's hometown dialect, hometown dishes, different growth environments and their own stories. These external differences have become a very interesting and meaningful part of making friends, which has helped me better understand the cultures of various places and broadened my horizons.
02. Make friends with earthlings
After coming to the United States, I am not a XX person or a northerner in the eyes of most people, but a China person and an Asian. Although I have always known these two identities, I seldom think about them in my daily life, because everyone around me is from China.
At that time, I felt that there was a big difference between North and South. And now in the United States, we don't even know the difference between the north and the south. We all come directly from China. Although there are great differences between Vietnamese and Indians, Filipinos and Japanese, in the global village of the United States, the racial and linguistic differences of Asians are not comparable to our similarities in many places, so we are all Asians. When we look at Filipinos from the perspective of China, we think they may be outsiders, but when we look at them from the perspective of Asians, they seem to be insiders again.
Aristotle thinks that everyone is a city-state, Benedict Anderson thinks that human's understanding of nationality begins with imagination, and Yuri Hurali even asserts that all isomorphism of human beings comes from imagination-whether a person is inside or outside the circle depends on how you imagine. Sometimes I watch too many sci-fi movies, and I often think that if aliens come to visit the earth, then we are all a community, and we are all earthlings.
Since China people in the United States have not been prevented from becoming a circle because of differences in dialects, hometown dishes, habits and growing environment, I think we can become a circle like locals, French, Russians, Pakistanis, Indians, Mexicans and Africans in the United States.
03. Inside and outside the circle
Go back to the question mentioned at the beginning, "Why do you want to make friends with foreigners?" I think the answer should be similar to why you make friends with China people, that is:
"Why make friends?"
Because they hit it off, because they appreciate each other, because they have the same interests or topics, because they want to encourage growth together, because they want to be a hot pot table or a mountaineering teammate. Because of a thousand reasons to want to make friends.
The longer I spend with my American teammates at home, the smaller the gap between us. After I changed my understanding of "why make friends with foreigners" from the heart, I made more and more foreign intimate friends. I have a French girlfriend who flew back from France for my wedding, an African-American girlfriend who walks and chats with me every two weeks, an American girl who often sends funny videos to each other, and a Russian male girlfriend who nags me about her love story every day. I also have close friends from China who have known each other for 17 years and are willing to fly from Beijing to Xi 'an to see my girlfriend. I also have close friends from China who are willing to visit new york by train or Minnesota by plane, and a group of local China friends who work out and have dinner together.
In my mind, these friendships are different but precious. I will not treat a relationship differently because the other party has the same or different nationality, color or language. Friendship with foreigners is neither lighter nor heavier. I don't treat myself as an outsider, nor do I treat them as outsiders.
Finally, on the topic of "integration", I want to say one more thing: we don't want to "integrate" into a certain circle, we want to build our own circle.
The premise of "integration" is that this circle of friends already exists in advance. I think this is an assumption that is not valid in many cases. Many times, apart from one or two confidants around us, many slightly larger circle of friends does not already exist, but something we can participate in and build together. Most of my circle of friends here was established by * * *, not "integrated". Therefore, our sense of ownership in these friendship constructions is also very important.
Finally, I hope all the people who wander outside can make friends with you, so that the days of wandering outside are less lonely and the days of cutting thorns are less difficult.