How can I make Chinese friends?

[marcoppe]

I know this question may sound a bit stupid, but I need suggestions to solve my problem of not finding Chinese friends.

I have a medium-low Chinese level. I recently began studying at a university in Nanjing and live on campus. I thought that I would be able to meet tons of Chinese friends everyday, but to me it seems really hard to even approaching them. I try to go to eat at the canteen when it's packed of students so that I am forced to share the table with Chinese or vice versa. When they sit down eating, they generally just stare at the food and don't seem to even notice me. This espacially applies to girls. I ask them if I can sit to their table. They say yes, but then they just look at the plate. I try to start conversation, but other than replying with a few words, I am not reciprocated. (and I am not a bad looking guy).

Last week I finally had the chance to chat with some guys during lunch. But after their 10 minutes eating sprint, they left in a hurry.

Please can you give me some suggestions on "how to find Chinese friends in a Chinese university campus"? Maybe I've not been here enough?

Thanks,

Marco

[self-taught-mba]

Do the language partner thing. After the exchange suggest beer. Start with one person then get integrated with their social circle later.

[Lu]

Yes, find a language partner, or more than one. For meeting girls, you can try clubs, girls there are often more inclined to socialize with white guys.

[liuzhou]

Head over to the English department. I'm going to bet they have a regular English corner which will be full of "friends".

[kdavid]

I second the idea of visiting an English corner and offering up some time to improve their English. You can start in with speaking English and then when they inevitably ask you whether or not you can speak Chinese you can go from there.

I also recommend any place where lots of college guys hang out and drink. Drinking generally lowers inhibitions, and sometimes improves language ability. Start in with the guys and then worry about the women.

[msittig]

Sports.

[imron]

I agree with msittig. And if not sports, then some other activity, but I would recommend against the English corner approach.

It might seem like an attractive option at first because there will be lots of Chinese who want to speak to you and get to know you, but if you think about it, people at the English corner want to learn English whereas you want to learn Chinese, so it's not really a good match. This is especially so if your Chinese skills are weaker than their English skills, as you'll find that any future language exchange will end up heavily skewed towards English.

If your priority is to learn Chinese (which is presumably why you are here) there's really no need to give up your time to teach someone else English. Your university is sure to have lots of clubs and associations (sports, movies, music, art, cooking, history, etc), so find one that you're interested in and join that. This way you'll meet people with similar interests to yourself, and you'll more than likely find people whose first interest isn't learning English (meaning more chance to practice your Chinese).

[marcoppe]

Thanks a lot for the help guys. Actually my native language is Italian, but I am not sure whether or not they have an Italian dept on campus. I shoul ask. I could teach English as well, as I've spent 6 yrs between the US and the UK.

But reading imron's post, I do agree with him 100%. My only purpose to be in China is to learn Chinese, and I heard by several people that the language partner thing is good to a certain extent. I'll be speaking 70% of the time in English, and I do not need to practice my English now.

Regarding the drinking spots..I don't know if I've got the wrong idea, but I tend to see very few Chinese students drinking at the places around campus, and I heard that the "good girls" do not hang out in those places. Maybe in Nanjing they are a bit more conservative than in BJ?

Anyways, I might give a try with the "on campus activities" card.

Thanks,

Marco

[Zhoule]

Marco,

What university are you referring to? If it is a major university (such as NanDa) the students are likely pretty busy, some also have part time jobs taking up time as well, and randomly selecting a student at lunch, when they may be hurried for time, may result in more disappointments. I have usually found students from smaller universities, or non-students have much more free time to hang out and chat. Just a thought. Good Luck.

[liuzhou]

people at the English corner want to learn English

Not in my experience. They usually just want to look at the strange foreigner and laugh at the few people who actually engage in conversation.

Yes, going to English corner (or Italian corner) won't help marcoppe's Chinese, but that wasn't what he asked for. He asked for friends.

[self-taught-mba]

No language partners are not good for learning Chinese (there are exceptions). Think of the Economic tradeoff. 1:5 instead of 1:1

I was saying for friends.

[adrianlondon]

I kept making friends in the student canteen at BNU. After a while, I stopped sitting next to random Chinese people because I ended up with a phone full of mobile numbers (usually girls) who would call me randomly and want to chat with me.

The problem was, it seems they all wanted a "special friend" rather than just someone to talk to, although a couple just wanted to see inside the Western dorm I was living in, to see at what a room looks like with only one bed in it, and running hot/cold water ;)

I made most of my Chinese friends (I was lucky - I made a lot and am still in touch with many of them 2 years later) from websites, but I doubt you'd be interested in the websites I used ...

Canteens do work, but it's better if you sit with another clas mate (preferable female in your case) and the two of you try to befriend the other people on the table. Don't worry if it doesn't work straight away, you can go there 5 days a week (twice a day if you wanted, for lunch and dinner) and those odds will soon pay off.

[johnmck]

I agree with the "Sports" approach. I spent a number of years in France not really picking up French very well (all my work colleagues speak excellent English). I eventually took up a sport (Judo) and this made a massive difference. My cousin moves around a lot and every time he moves to a new town in a new country he immediately joins a local football club.

[Yang Rui]

I'd also advise avoiding English corner. I've found in China that often the people who actively approach you in universities are either language-stalkers or just a bit geeky. And they can get extremely clingy (boys and girls) once they've declared that you are officially friends. I had a bad experience with a couple who found out where i lived and just knocked on the door every day. I ended up pretending I was out most of the time. It was extremely sad to hear how long they knocked on my door for, even though there was no answer. Sometimes they would knock constantly for half an hour, and then leave little notes.

My advice (along with the sports stuff which is good) is to talk to people who have left uni and are working in interesting places. What you find interesting is up to you, but i made friends talking to people who run live-music bars, or work in galleries. These people tend to be more mature and worldly. In Beijing these people are easy to find. I guess it will be harder in Nanjing, but it should be possible.

[Lu]

Regarding the drinking spots..I don't know if I've got the wrong idea, but I tend to see very few Chinese students drinking at the places around campus, and I heard that the "good girls" do not hang out in those places.

Are you looking for friends, or for a girlfriend? If the former, follow some of the good advice given above. If the latter, keep in mind that since 'good girls' in China are mostly not interested in short-term dating with a foreign guy, no matter how handsome he is considered to be back home, you might want to target other girls.

Good luck!

[marcoppe]

Lu,

I guess you are absolutely right. I am looking mainly for friends, although I am not planning to stay in China for just a year. I'd like to invest something more than a year of Chinese studies. So, who knows what my human nature brings me to do. Certainly will keep me away from bar and club-goers, since I've recently been to a coulple and really did not like that much what I've seen.

Anyways, recently at the school canteen I was lucky. I got some students approaching me. One girl was only replying in English to whatever thing I would say in Chinese. And that kind of thing just drives me nuts (although I should understand that she needs to practice her English). But I guess the secret is to get to know her and wait for friends' introductions.

[imron]

And that kind of thing just drives me nuts

You should have just started talking to her in Italian then

[A life of study]

Personally, I don't see why people who don't speak English as a first language should try to find jobs teaching English in China. In nearly all cases, they overrate their English ability. "I heard by several people that..." was just one of numerous errors. "I heard FROM several people that..." If you're Italian, you just don't have the ability to be an English language teacher...

[A life of study]

You can have productive relationships with people learning English. One of my best Chinese friends was met at the English Corner and then we did many exchanges, but they were very intense: eg the whole day Saturday in English followed by the whole day Sunday in Chinese. Of course, if one taught Chinese on the side for 80 yuan an hour, one could then find a Chinese teacher for 20 yuan an hour, and so the 1:1 ratio with a Chinese friend is well below the 4:1 ratio that the various skills are worth.. but you get a friendship too, which can be worth everything.

[Loriquero]

Start hanging out with your korean/japanese/tailandese/indonesian classmates, from my experience, they sure have some chinese friends, make sure they take you to karaoke ^^

offtopic: I agree is not appropiate for a non-english-mother-language speaker to teach english, but there's no enough native english speakers people in this world for teaching english to the other people who is willing to learn english. In my schools on my country I never had a native english speaker teacher in my english classes....

That's why almost nobody (including me) know good english in my country XD