Oct.
2001, Xene #24
Making Friends with the Natives
by Danny Lamont
I bet you're one of the following people:
A) You've lived in a foreign country for a year or
two.
B) You're living in a foreign country now.
C) You're planning at some point to live abroad for
a year or so.
If you're a C, you're probably full of expectation.
You'll make good friends with the natives and other
nationalities, learn the language, and have a great
experience. But before you go abroad, ask an A or
a B how easy they found making friends with the natives.
It might save you some disappointment.
Wading through a sea of cafe tables in London's trendy
Soho are two B's, Megumi and Rika. Both in their early
twenties, they've been living in London for five months,
studying English.
"Making
friends with English people here is much more difficult
than we expected," Rika says. "We haven't
made any English friends so far. We have made lots
of friends from other countries, like Spain, Italy,
China and Greece who we've met at language school
and at parties. That is a great thing about being
here - you can make friends from all over the world.
But it's a disappointment not to have made English
friends so far." I come across Hiro, Akiko, and
Yuki outside Camden Market just as they are saying
goodbye to some French friends.
"We haven't managed to make any English friends
yet. We just don't get the chance to meet them. When
we improve our English, things will get easier,"
reckons Akiko.
People often cite the language barrier as the reason
Japanese don't make friends with many native speakers
abroad. But that is only one factor, according to
Masa, 23, who has just come back to Sapporo after
14 months in Sydney. His English is just about perfect.
"Until the middle of my stay, I felt that I didn't
know how to make friends with the Australians. You
have to be proactive, otherwise they assume you can't
speak much English. I was shy over there, as many
Japanese people are. I think I didn't use the opportunities
that I had to talk to people as much as I could have
done."
Squandering chances to make friends was something
that Akiko, a 26-year-old from Sapporo, attributes
to her lack of confidence in English.
"During my two-year stay in Sydney, I did a course
in jewelry making, and my teacher, who was Australian,
introduced me to his friends. Though they invited
me out with them, I didn't go, because I didn't feel
my English was good enough."
What Japanese people abroad so often forget is that
communication skills count far more than actual language
ability when it comes to making friends. According
to social psychologist Alan Pease in his book "Body
Language," what people actually say is the least
important thing in face-to-face interaction. When
somebody speaks, body language makes up 70% of the
received message, tone of voice 22% and actual words
a measly 8%.
There
are many reasons why people living abroad have trouble
making friends with the natives there. People living
in their own country have less of a need for new friends.
Friendship follows the path of least resistance -
people naturally gravitate towards those from similar
backgrounds and towards those who will mix with their
existing friends with the least awkwardness. And people
can be reluctant to put the effort into becoming friends
with someone who may be leaving.
When the shoe is on the other foot, how easy is it
for foreigners to make friends with Japanese in Hokkaido?
Japan's fascination with Western culture seems insatiable,
and according to the Management and Coordination Agency
there are only 625,000 registered foreigners in Japan
(excluding ethnic Chinese and Koreans, most of whom
grew up here), which makes non-Japanese something
of a rarity. Making friends must be a doddle!
So imagine you're on a plane to Japan for the first
time, looking forward to making Japanese friends.
You pick up the helpful guidebook "Live and Work
in Japan" by David and Elizabeth Roberts, and
check the section called "Social Life".
"Most
Japanese are still fascinated by gaijin and are usually
keen to be hospitable. Nonetheless, you may find it
difficult to develop friendships with the Japanese
people at the kind of level to which you may be accustomed.
Tomodachi are friends who go back to school days.
This type of friendship equates most closely to our
own idea of friendship, but by definition excludes
the newcomer to Japan. Many foreigners find it easiest
to make real friendships amongst the expatriate community,
where it exists (and that is in all but the most remote
areas)." Does your heart sink? Sure, it's great
to make friends with other foreigners, but making
friends with the Japanese was a big part of the game
plan. Sobbing quietly into the shoulder of the unfortunate
person next to you, you are about to ask a flight
attendant if the pilot can turn the plane around,
when you think, "Hang on, how can a guidebook
generalize on something as subjective, as personal,
as friendship?"
Perhaps the Roberts's section on social life should
have had a blank page with the words "SEE FOR
YOURSELF." Whether you judge the book's advice
to be accurate or just plain negative is not the point.
It's not your reaction, but your action that counts.
We get opinions and advice from each other every day,
bundled up in the form of well-meaning generalizations.
These are eagerly consumed by listeners with little
more than an "Oh, really?" as a validity
check. But ask the speaker a couple of questions about
what exactly they based their opinion on, and you
may find out whether their judgement is valid.
Person A: "People at that gym aren't friendly."
Person B: "How many times have you been?"
Person A: "Once."
The more that Japanese and foreigners understand each
other's experience of trying to make friends, the
better. Foreigners, when they first arrive in Hokkaido,
are struck by how friendly everyone is to them.
"At first, it's great when you get all the attention
because you're a foreigner. You feel a bit like a
king, even though really it's a false dynasty,"
says Graham (not his real name), 31, who's been teaching
in Hokkaido for three years.
When the honeymoon is over, foreigners often find
that making friends is more difficult than they imagined.
"To find a group of Japanese friends that you
can really do things with, like call up and go camping
is really difficult," reckons Steve, 26, who
has been teaching English in Sapporo for more than
three years. "Friendships feel very superficial
here. I think many Japanese people aren't looking
to have a long-term foreigner friend, just a short-term
'fling.'"
Lots of foreigners feel the effort is one-way traffic.
Paul, a 26-year-old who has been in Sapporo almost
two years, says: "I know some lovely Japanese
people here who I really enjoy hanging out with. I
often invite them out with my friends, and though
they come and we have a great time, they rarely return
the compliment and invite me out with their own friends.
I don't really understand why. I can speak Japanese
quite well. Perhaps they don't think I would fit in
to their other friendship groups and it would be awkward."
David, 30, who has taught English in Sapporo for six
years, has also been surprised that the Japanese aren't
more proactive in their friendships with foreigners.
"Japanese
seem to have less of a tendency to follow up on that
friendship, to call you up and invite you out. I've
made some very good friendships, but it takes a lot
of hard work." He wonders whether it's shyness
rather than lack of will on the part of the Japanese.
Paradoxically, there more than 300 messages a year
put on the message board at Sapporo International
Communication Plaza by Japanese people looking for
foreign friends, according to a rough count.
Being proactive does pay off though. Karen, who has
been teaching in Sapporo for four years, has three
very close girlfriends, and they all make an effort
to meet regularly.
"I'd say that the friendships are as strong as
friendships I have back home in Canada."
Sometimes, the actual interaction can be quite different
from what people are used to, a difference that surprised
Paul when he went camping recently.
"I realized that I hardly know my Japanese friends,
and they hardly know me! Compared to foreigners, Japanese
people rarely seem to ask each other personal questions,
give forthright opinions or talk about personal experience,
so it's harder to get to know them. Foreigners want
to get to know people that way. In a way, I wish we
had found out more about each other and talked less
about how good the yakisoba was!"
Compared with abroad, Hokkaido's nightlife offers
limited opportunity to meet new people. With izakayas,
everyone is fixed in allocated seats, which makes
it difficult to mingle. Some of the few bars that
do offer the go-where-you-want freedom of bars abroad
are Locotonte, Rad Brothers, Gaijin Bar and Salsita.
There are also international parties. The recipe:
Take a cafe or bar, add 30 to 60 foreigners and Japanese,
marinate in a nomihodai, and sprinkle with snacks.
These parties typically cost less for foreigners than
for Japanese, so in return there's a mild obligation
for foreigners to chat in English, which many of the
Japanese attendees want to practice.
A new social dish, however, is about to be served.
How
many times have you woken up one morning and fancied
doing a new sport or activity, but not had the friends
to do it with? Or wanted to meet some new people through
an activity that doesn't necessarily involve lifting
glasses of alcohol off a table? Great news! Several
foreigners have started a voluntary organisation,
Sapporo International Friendship Society (SIFS), which
will run events open to anyone.
"SIFS wants to offer people lots of different
activities and opportunities for people to interact,"
says Ian Buchanan, 32, an English teacher who is one
of the founders. "It could be anything: a snowball
fight, an onsen trip, a barbecue, a beach trip, a
volleyball game, or a skiing or snowboarding trip."
Ian is running SIFS along with Ryan Zeigler, 26, who
is in the Masters program at Hokkaido University.
"The idea is so simple," explains Ryan.
"People give us their e-mail address, and when
there's an event coming up we mail them the details.
We're planning to have a Web site and bulletin board,
so that if someone wants to find a tennis partner
for example, they post a message."
The inspiration came when Ian and some other foreigners
realized that they had "missed a lot of opportunities
to make friends with Japanese and even with other
foreigners, because the opportunities to meet them
hadn't been there," as Ian says.
"I've noticed that if you just say to a Japanese
person, "Hey, I'm having a party with my friends,
come and join us,' they often worry about who else
is coming and whether they will fit in," says
Ryan. "Foreigners throw all the cards into the
wind. If they know one person out of twenty at the
start, that's fine for them. The grouping element
limits the opportunities that Japanese and foreigners
have to meet each other. With an organisation like
SIFS, Japanese people won't feel so hesitant about
coming along."
July marked their first event: a barbecue at Toyohira
River attended by more than 100 people.
As Ian says, "You don't even realise the demand
for this kind of thing until you start doing it."
Alex Cafe,
Fortnightly on Fridays, 7:30 - 11:30 p.m.
(Halloween party: Friday, 26 October)
Nomihodai and food. Foreigners \1000, Japanese \2000
5F, President Sapporo, 2-chome, Odori Higashi, Chuo-ku,
Sapporo
Tel: 011-233-0154
Club Latino
Latin Dance Party, (just talking is fine, too): 3rd
Sunday of the month.
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. (not October)
Ebetsu International Center (3 minutes from JR Nopporo
Station)
Tel: 011-381-1111
May's Party
Fortnightly (usually 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month),
8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
(Halloween party: Saturday, 27 October)
Nomihodai and food. Foreigners \1000, Japanese \2000
1F, Devex Building, N1 W20, Chuo-ku Sapporo
Tel: 011-621-3263
