By NICHOLAS KREBS, 6/22/2012. Things have continued to go very well in the early days of my travel. I’ve become closer with a lot of the staff at the hostel and some of the patrons. One thing I’ve learned is that the Chinese have a different concept of friendship than people do in the United States. A friend bought me a delicious breakfast yesterday and after the meal was over, I immediately felt compelled to insist that I take him out the next time and pay. He thought this was a bit silly and explained to me that he would do anything for his friends and that gift giving wasn’t necessarily so transactional here, implying a debt to be repaid in the future. I have a hard time accepting this as I feel bad when students take me out on limited means because I don’t want to deplete any of their resources. But I suppose I’ve also insisted in a place of hardly having any money to taking people out that I consider a friend, so I should understand.
There is one thing that I feel is being expected of me here at the hostel that I have a hard time providing; and that is being a co-conspirator in everyone’s attempt to find a boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s like being at summer camp! The average age here is about 20-22, so I get where people are coming from, but it’s been quite awhile since I’ve been asked to invite a girl over to our table on behalf of someone else. At least the last person I invited over ended up revealing that she does Chinese-English translation as a part time job. This could prove useful for me in translating housing articles as well as for my friend who had his eye on her! This is my transactional account of human interaction popping up again…