Navigating Cultural Confusion: Friendship Thursday, 10 February 2011 10:24 Written by Andrea Burzynski

Shanghai Dolls may come from all around the world, but one experience unites us: we’re all wai guo nu ren (foreign women) here in China!  This experience can be exciting, glamorous, and advantageous… as well as frustrating, isolating, and inconvenient.  In addition to sharing this unique experience, we often share language and culture, which makes it easier to share friendship.

Although foreign girlfriends (especially Dolls!) can be vital to our happiness and sanity, most of us would probably be thrilled to add a few more Chinese friends to our circles.  The thing is, despite your best efforts, sometimes it’s just so… hard.

Most obviously, there’s the language barrier.  Then, you can’t agree on the best way to spend a Friday night: you like to dance until dawn after a few drinks at el Coctel, while she prefers to get a full night’s beauty sleep after KTV-ing it up at the nearest Haoledi.  On a deeper level, you have different life experiences and goals.  You’ve been able to visit several continents, and are working to establish yourself in your career before starting a family.  The only stamps in her passport are from the Expo pavilion staff, and she worries that if she doesn’t secure a husband by the magic age of 28, she’ll be forever doomed to a life of spinsterhood and financial insecurity.  There’s often a financial barrier as well:  many of us maintain or improve our lifestyles in Shanghai, while many educated, professional Chinese women still struggle to heat their homes and care for their aging parents.  Oh, and what is the deal with her texting you all the time and holding your hand?

Although some differences can be perplexing, don’t let them be discouraging.  Our lives won’t get any easier if we let these differences get in the way of making friends.  Besides, part of the reason that living here is so fun is because we encounter so many novel and unexpected things!  This article is part of a series on navigating cultural confusion in Shanghai, so keep your eyes peeled for insights into dating, the workplace, and daily life.  Below are some explanations of common misunderstandings that pop up when forging friendships with the Chinese, with advice on how to navigate them.

My Chinese friends never call, but they always text.  Sometimes, we exchange dozens of messages.  Why don’t they just call if they want to chat?

Blame the language barrier and the Chinese education system for this one.  Think of languages that you have learned, but may not use on a daily basis.  Given the option between writing something at your leisure with a dictionary or having a real time conversation with a native speaker, you would probably pick the first option, right?  Your new friend would, too, so humor her.  The Chinese education system further contributes to this instinct by focusing its foreign language instruction on reading and writing at the expense of speaking and listening, so she probably feels more confident texting.

Also, an absence of body language and facial expressions make things more difficult.  Think of all those times you’ve muddled through an interaction you didn’t completely understand verbally because you could get the gist of things by using body language and looking at the other person’s face.  Without these communication cues, things get harder.

Lastly, your friend does not want to lose face by making a mistake.

If you want a phone call, try texting her in advance to ask if she’ll be free to take your call.  This way, your call won’t catch her off-guard, and she will feel more confident and prepared to talk with you.

Sometimes, talking to Chinese friends feels like talking to my Grandma.  They always ask me if I’ve eaten, and want to feed me.  Even if it’s 25 degrees out, someone inevitably chides me to put on my jacket so I don’t catch a cold, and I get cautioned to keep my purse close to avoid pickpockets.  I’m a grown woman who knows how to care for herself – why all the fuss?

In Chinese culture, emotions not often expressed directly, as it’s viewed as unseemly to gush with affection.  Expressing concern for your physical well-being, no matter how silly it seems, can be a way for a friend to show that she cares.  In other words, “Don’t catch cold!” on a balmy May night = “You’re my friend and I care about you”.  How sweet.

In a country where widespread starvation is a not-so-distant memory, food signifies health, generosity, and abundance.  If your friend asks you if you’ve eaten, she doesn’t really need to know that you’re famished from skipping lunch because of a work meeting, or stuffed from the three-course brunch you  barely managed to finish.  It’s more of a how-are-you type of pleasantry; you can simply say you’ve eaten, and carry on.

My female friend is very physical.  She likes to hold hands or link arms when we walk down the street, and she frequently sits close or puts her arm around me.  Could she be a lesbian?

Your friend probably likes spending time with you, but it’s doubtful that she likes you as anything more than a friend.  Actually, it’s the fact that homosexuality probably doesn’t feature much in her thought process that allows her to be so free with her physical affection without fear that you’ll misinterpret it.  Although Shanghai has a small gay subculture, the fact that homosexuality is still largely taboo is evidenced by the government’s penchant for quashing gay events, and by the fact that many Chinese gays and lesbians remain closeted out of fear of rejection by their families and by society.  This sentiment is even embedded in the language: in Mandarin, the phrase meaning “to come out” is the same phrase used to mean “to go insane”.  While social taboos can’t change someone’s sexual orientation, the point of this detail is that your friend is not likely to do anything that would make her appear homosexual because it would cause big problems for her.  Physical affection among female friends is common in China, so feel free to hold hands and skip down the street without any misunderstandings.

Whenever I arrange to meet up with a friend, everything is very structured.  We always meet at a certain time and place to do some activity (for example, 1pm at People’s Square Exit 15 to go to the Shanghai Museum).  Sometimes, I just want to be spontaneous and hang out casually.

In many Western countries, spending time with the other person is the explicit purpose of social meetings.  “In China, this would be strange” ,  says my friend Xu, a Level 4 interpreter who has been working with and befriending foreigners for years.  “You have an activity, and conversation happens as a by-product” he explains.  This way, you can enjoy yourselves without pressure to have a profound, life-changing conversation.

If you don’t know someone well, think of the activity as a built-in guard against awkward silences.  If you just want to have a friend over to your home or to grab a casual drink at the neighborhood bar, give her a concrete reason to come.  Instead of just saying “come over and we’ll chill”, say “come over – I have a snack to share with you”.  Then, get out some fruit, nuts, chips and salsa, whatever you have.  The snack itself doesn’t matter – it’s the gesture.

Now that you have solved these mysteries, text your new friend to ask her if she’s eaten, and invite her to go shopping – because, for all of your differences, that’s surely something you have in common.

Comments 

 

#6 Made me laugh and smile! — MissRose 2011-11-23 17:20

Andrea, great article! I have to say that this article helped me (a Chinese) understand some of MY Chinese friends. This article does not fully apply to me since I have grown up in the states and am used to foreign ways, but however I still have to lay down the fact that it is still hard, at times, to make friends with foreigners. Maybe it is a barrier of the mind that doesn't allow communication to flow (even if we are speaking the same language) but you are always bound to find someone who has the same interests as you and that barrier will disappear.

Ha ha for me, when I walk the streets of Shanghai I sometimes feel like a foreigner because I also find some of the things the native Chinese people do as weird. But I have learned to accept them because we are all people, just with different beliefs.

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#5 RE: Navigating Cultural Confusion: Friendship — MakeUpDoll 2011-07-22 02:10

This was such a great article that I had to read it to my mother. The first time I was in Shanghai my best friend was a Chinese woman. So this article explained alot of the things I experienced in detail. I'll be returning to Shanghai in a few weeks and hope that my new bff will be another Chinese.

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#4 Now I know why... — J 2011-04-04 04:04

Wow. Thanks for this. Now I know why there was so much touchy feely with one of my co-workers. It is definitely hard to navigate these barriers...I just felt too much like my physical space was being invaded with all the touching and close standing...and I consider myself a warm, touchy feely person! By North American standards anyway.

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#3 RE: Navigating Cultural Confusion: Friendship — Meredith 2011-03-23 17:41

This is a great article. I work in an office full of young Chinese women with whom I thought it would be so easy to make friends, but it's taken nearly two years for us to figure each other other out! Once I got over the relatively minor barriers between Western and Eastern culture, I found I valued my friendships with Chinese girlfriends as much my foreign ones.

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#2 RE: Navigating Cultural Confusion: Friendship — julia 2011-02-14 17:30

Great article... I always get asked if I have loads of Chinese friends from my mates at home and find it hard to explain to them why it is so hard to actually become friends. I think I am like Elena and don't put in enough effort. I do have some Chinese friends, but most of them have lived overseas or they are more of acquaintances, rather than friends.

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#1 Eyes-opening — elena 2011-02-13 14:07

Andrea, thanks for the great article. It really reflects all the "odds" of being friends with Chinese girls. After living in Shanghai for almost 3 years I can't tell that I made real local Chinese friends. I just can't find "common ground" and perhaps don't try hard enough. That's why I hang out with Dolls all the time :)

It would be very interesting what local Chinese think about friendship with foreigners. I'm sure they find it complicated as well.

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