Making friends in China

My own experience for meeting people in China.

In China, you’ll find that you’ll make friends with someone new each day, it’s really that easy. Being a foreigner student opens up a lot of doors and opportunities to be accepted by Chinese and also lots of people from other nationalities too. The Chinese are extremely welcoming and wanting you to join in with whatever they’re doing, even the dancing aunties.

I had vast experiences of meeting people each moment of my time in China, many of which was at the university, it’s really easy to meet people in the canteens, walking around, the classrooms, or even at the local stores, the Chinese students will often approach you and find any means to try and talk to you. And you’ll quickly find that you’re soon invited out for dinner or to play sports or go drinking with these people that you’ve only just met, but they’re just excited and welcoming because they want to be friends with a foreigner, don’t worry about it!

Also, if you’re living at the international dormitories, you’ll probably find some people from your own country (I didn’t, but that didn’t bother me), and even though the majority of international students may stick around their own country’s people, they’ll be extremely welcoming for you to join them, whether they’re going out for dinner, going exploring around the city, or even just going to get a coffee, it’s very easy to make friends in China.

Another thing that I always found is that if you’re traveling somewhere, many people will stop you and ask for a photo. Don’t worry, it’s not because you’re ugly or scary looking, it’s just because you’re a foreigner, and perhaps at that certain area they don’t see many each day, so they want to take a photo of your handsome face and show their friends that they had a picture with a foreigner, I definitely think that us foreigners could definitely make some money from this somewhere... We’ve all seen that video of the group of big guys sat down in Shanghai with around 20 people taking pictures and videos of them!

In China you’ll never be lonely, if you speak English, the majority of people here will speak English too, and you’ll often find that you’re heading out each day to meet some more friends that you’ve met along your journey here in China. I’ve never met so many welcoming people before in my life. You’ll probably even be invited to someone’s house for Spring Festival, but make sure you make the most of this! As it’s an extremely important aspect of a Chinese person’s life as it’s such a big part of family time, so make sure you are as polite as possible!