How to Make Friends and Influence People

[dave]

 

- Chinese ladies don't make friends based on whether that person would be any use later on. However, one expect their friends to pitch-in when there is difficulty. If a person don't help while he/she is able to, that person then disqualifies as a friend.

 

....

Just some thoughts, not quite organized.

 

Making a friend by judging if it would be any use is awful wrong, BUT also if the person meets the difficulty and his or her friends all leave, it's not right to do.

'A friend indeed is a friend in need', it may be a out-of-fasion sentence, just i undersand how people feel when they are having hard times and all the friends keep distance away from them, it's like when you are in the mud, nobody gives you a hand to pull you up, instead they pretend not knowing or maybe forgeting and those possibly are your so called best freinds. Friends are someones that truly care about you, like you for who you are, respect you for who you are, share interests, learn knowledge from, stay close to you and help you even you are in difficulties instead of leaving..., that's the friends for life, it's easy to say, it's hard to find...

 

It's just my personal opinion

Dave's wife

[SmilingAsia]

Please, you can give us some more in depth knowledge about how Chinese ladies think about the subject of being friends than that, can't you? When I saw that you had posted I was hoping for something that would help us to understand this situation a little better. We marry a Chinese lady, a person who is quite mysterious, but it is fun and interesting to try to understand her. On this subject, though, the culture gap seems to be insurmountable.

My close friends are: someone who shares my value, have similiar background or educational background, someone who was there for me when I survived the darkest age. Life time friends. Guys come and go, girl friends stay forever.

 

You guys think we are all yellow-faced women but we identify ourselves different. Southern women think northern women too hot tempered and northern women think southern women too practical. City women think country women not fun, country women think city women too arrogant. Some women highly educated, some women barely write Chinese at all. Nothing in common except yellow skin and they happened to on the same land of US. Just like both sheep and goat are "yang" to us, but you guys said they are different.

Edited April 30, 2008 by SmilingAsia (see edit history)

[SmilingAsia]

I do agree with everyone that a nonworking girl (no job yet) may not have much to talk about with new people. But honestly, I find that most Chinese and Japanese people have no end of fun talking together about how America is too dark, the food is too sweet, the place is too country, everything is too boring, the water is too cold, the meat is too salty, the cars are too big... (-_^)

Like expatriates in China: China has nothing but laborers, streets too dirty, food too funny, people too rude.......

 

Some topics and behaviors are developed in some conditional environment: My friend worked as a translator when they built DongGuan nuclear power station, she told me all the wives of the expatriates were gossipping, compared her husband with someone else's husband, whose husband made more money......

Edited April 30, 2008 by SmilingAsia (see edit history)

[Smitty]

You guys think we are all yellow-faced women but we identify ourselves different. Southern women think northern women too hot tempered and northern women think southern women too practical. City women think country women not fun, country women think city women too arrogant. Some women highly educated, some women barely write Chinese at all. Nothing in common except yellow skin and they happened to on the same land of US. Just like both sheep and goat are "yang" to us, but you guys said they are different.

Same thing here Eunice, same thing here....

[griz326]

Also understand guanxi - relationships and connections. Most Chinese are not interested in being your casual friend unless there is something in it for them.

 

 

Just to be certain this, ¹Øϵ, is what you are talking about, Dennis.

[SheLikesME?]

We just had a discussion about this and I was criticized for making a statement to my wife that she HATES Chinese women. It was the result of her buying a nice little white suit coat at a yard sale for $1 some months ago. We were told it was a local Chinese lady who was a friend and left it there for the sale. She wore it a few times but on last visit it was laid at the front door to wipe feet on to get the dollar use. She said every time it felt dirty and she couldn't get the dirt off. I recall having a similar kind of feel about it. Maybe it hung in a closet too long. But heck it was a symbol to me of all her reaction to the Chinese she met here in Lil Rock. The lady across the street studying to be a doctor, she talks bad of the way they raise their boy. The restaurant owner offered to take her to the store and help her out, she thinks it is because she wants her business, but when I say she didn't like her, she said she does like her, but it is all business.

 

Bottom line I will try to provide opportunities also. I have learned to not mention or push her to see them or talk. Before her daughter showed up she was desperate for friends when I was not there, but she refused offers by these Asian women. But she doesn't dislike them like I thought,... I guess (She was so desperate she was even calling my son to see what he was doing. But go contact that woman who extended a warm hand? Never. And she dressed nice and seemed cultured too, as my wife puts it.)

 

Eric your right, I have to tread lightly about being closer to or making good comments about another woman at all, especially a Chinese woman. Whew.

[Robert S.]

Thanks for this post, Dennis, it illustrates vividly exactly what this thread is about and what I was talking about in my post here. This subject is THE most incomprehensible thing about Chinese ladies that I have yet to find out about - among a consetellation of mysteries.

 

What is the self-defense mechanism that will not allow them to be friends with their peers? How can they find a reason to reject every single Chinese lady they meet? What kind of competitive world is their inner life that they can't let go of making comparisons and just accept other ladies as they are? And themselves as they are?

 

I think the only explanation is that it is not just cultural, but a recent cultural addition coming from the population explosion. I did not get the impression that my wife's mother felt the same way toward ladies of her own age, or my wife's aunt.