How people with such different background can make friends with each other - Essay Example

Understandably, when one visits a new place, they are more likely to make a direct connection with those they share culture or background with since many friendships sprout on common grounds. Take my case for instance; when I first arrived in America, I was nervous and apprehensive about just about everything. I kept constantly reminding myself that I was a foreigner, and somehow this must have influenced my perception of how my fellow students, especially the Americans, saw me. As a result, it was easier to make friends with Chinese people – either the Chinese Americans or the Chinese people living in America.

This was because around them, I did not feel very self-conscious, and I blended in much more easily; however, as I came to learn that with the benefit of research and personal experiences it can also be easy to make friends and interact with people from different cultures. Such interactions can be very rewarding and enlightening since one can learn a lot about different cultures; besides, with all our differences, every human being can find some similarly between themselves and anybody else as long as each of them shows interest in knowing the other.

Interacting with new people in a new country by itself is a common experience; this is because each of you is in one way new to your present environment. After I moved into my house, I rarely spent much of my free time there, and every other weekend or when I had free time, I would go out visiting my Chinese friends or their families. In fact, in my first few days, I hardly spoke more than a few words to any of my flat mates, who were not Chinese, and there were a precious few of these. In a way, in my mind, I was still in China since I was actively avoiding any non-Chinese culture in what my American friend Chris later told me was a search for stability.

However, one Sunday afternoon I was in my room browsing, and my computer crashed; I wondered what the