Yi Sun

ESL 100

March 2, 2017

Communication with Friends

I was afraid of to make friends with people when I came to The United States. Even though I did everything to prepare for my new life in America, I could not get used to it. I was excited that I was going to have a new life in a famous country, America, and I also felt respect from my old friends and relatives from China. However, all of these things are not as easy as a saying. I got lost in translation when I arrived in The united States. I lost all of my friends, and I could not stay in touch with people who were familiar to me. America was like a blank wall, and I was just as a baby that needed to learn everything that I never touched before.

I have been in Chicago for about one year, but I am still missing friends in China. Some people are not easy to make friends with even though they are very friendly. Everyone looks busy. Each person has duties to do, and it feels like they can never have extra-time to relax with others. Sometimes when I feel bored, I pick up my phone to call someone to have a drink outside, but there is no one that can drink with me. I worry about if I will bother them when I give them a call. In the U.S. activities need to be by appointment. On the contrary when I was living in China. I could meet friends and knock on their door anytime. When I was a high school student. Every morning, my friends knocked my door and called my name towards my window to wake me up, and then we went to school together. I really enjoyed at that time. We spent a lot of time with each other doing interesting things on the weekend, such as going fishing and swimming. However, now I usually spend time with myself and stay at home. In this way, I feel like I have lost my connection with my friends.

Furthermore, I feel separated from my friends. There are a lot of people around me in my daily life, and some of them can be friends, such like classmates. Nearly everyday we spend time together. We do research, and talk to each other during class. We meet each other everyday, so we feel close to each other, but it is not real.  After class, people separate. Students have different classes and schedules, so we cannot study in a same classroom all the time. That is different from China. In China, we have the same class and the same schedule if we were classmates. Students could stay in touch and study together all the time, and it was good for our relationships. Actually I did not get used to this costum in the U.S. and I do not feel people are close to each other. Relationships are hard to build.

Moreover, it was hard to make friends for me, because people have different attitude. Some people feel it is pretty easy to make friends in the U.S. because people are very friendly in this country. Yes, I think so too. Most people are warmhearted, but I need friends that have the same interests as me. I would like to study in our spare time, hang out together, watch a movie after work and share secrets. What I want is like a dream, but it is easy to find these kind of guys in China. People shared their life with me. If we had same interests we could be friends easily. It is same in Chicago. People are easy to spend time with, but we do not have much more spare time to spend together. That is a little bit sad situation.

When I think about relationship, and friends, it is a new clear in my mind that how I can live well with friends in The United States. Time in China is over. It is my new life in a new country, and I am not like a baby anymore. What I should do is to continue my new life and make more friends in America. I have to get used to be in this country, and I also have to make a good connection to people and to myself. Now, the communication has changed, it is not between my friends and me. It is between this country and me.