For Chinese a true friendship endures throughout life changes. Chinese are friends even if they haven’t spoken for 20 years. If you shared something at one time, then all your life you are friends. This is the best of guanxi(关系), the Wide Web that connects Chinese through time and space. So, we can say Chinese invented the Internet long before Bill Gates was born.
In North America, even the relationship in which people feel close and tell each other personal problems may not survive life changes such as moving to another city, graduation from a university or marriage. If the people do not see each other regularly, the relationship is likely to die
Chinese friends share “ things in common”: a task, a class, the hometown. Friendships are formed by people who work or go to school together. You may or may not like the person, but if he or she can do something for you because of his position or job, you can be friends. But in North America, business and friendship are kept separate. The friendships are usually tied to specific activities. A person may have work friends and leisure (休闲时) activity friends. Also friends tend to have similar financial circumstances, because friendship in the West is based on equality.
Why? It’s because their friendship is mostly a matter of providing emotional support and spending time together, so they do not feel comfortable in a relationship in which one person is giving more and the other is dependent on what is giving. A westerner will respond to a friend’s trouble by asking “What do you want to do?” The idea is to help the friend to think out the problem and discover the solution he or she really wants and then to support the solution.
Chinese friends give each other more concrete help. A Chinese will use personal
connections to help a friend get something hard to obtain. They give each other money and might help each other out financially over a long time.
In the West, you can certainly ask a friend to do something with you, but you recognize that your friend may say no, if he or she gives you as reason. You would not expect a friend to drop everything to respond to a non-urgent need such as shopping. Nor would you expect a friend to recognize and respond to your wishes without stating them.
A friend in China is someone who offers help without waiting to be asked. There are few limits to what you can expect from a friend. You can feel free to tell your friend what he or she can or should do or help or please you.
different friendship in china and western countries
