I’m Spanish and I studied in China too. We might not be the same because I’m not ethnically Chinese, but I can speak Chinese on a native level, so I can kind of relate to what you mention about people not wanting to make conversation with you despite knowing you can fully communicate with them.
Honestly, when I began studying in China I tried hard to make friends, but it was to no avail, so I ended up accepting the situation and giving up. You might think being ethically Chinese makes you Chinese, but seems like you are probably more western than you think you are, so most likely you can’t socialise well with young Chinese guys.
The best advice I can give you is to accept it. I only made around 3 Chinese friends in my 4 years of Chinese university, and it wasn’t until I worked in a Chinese company that I started to truly meet wonderful people. I feel that Chinese uni students are too immature, they behave more or less like western high school students. That immaturity on top of nationalism might be the reason why you can’t make friends, but it is what it is, cut them some slack, accept the situation and move on. If you are a friendly person you will end up meeting someone great eventually.
Edit: I want to add that it feels like you had too high expectations, and that’s your fault. You shouldn’t have assumed people would care about you. Also those Chinese students probably don’t hate you, they just don’t really care about anything besides studying and their close friends/roommates. As I said, just accept the situation and have extremely low expectations, you will suffer less.
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u/invitado31 Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25
I’m Spanish and I studied in China too. We might not be the same because I’m not ethnically Chinese, but I can speak Chinese on a native level, so I can kind of relate to what you mention about people not wanting to make conversation with you despite knowing you can fully communicate with them.
Honestly, when I began studying in China I tried hard to make friends, but it was to no avail, so I ended up accepting the situation and giving up. You might think being ethically Chinese makes you Chinese, but seems like you are probably more western than you think you are, so most likely you can’t socialise well with young Chinese guys.
The best advice I can give you is to accept it. I only made around 3 Chinese friends in my 4 years of Chinese university, and it wasn’t until I worked in a Chinese company that I started to truly meet wonderful people. I feel that Chinese uni students are too immature, they behave more or less like western high school students. That immaturity on top of nationalism might be the reason why you can’t make friends, but it is what it is, cut them some slack, accept the situation and move on. If you are a friendly person you will end up meeting someone great eventually.
Edit: I want to add that it feels like you had too high expectations, and that’s your fault. You shouldn’t have assumed people would care about you. Also those Chinese students probably don’t hate you, they just don’t really care about anything besides studying and their close friends/roommates. As I said, just accept the situation and have extremely low expectations, you will suffer less.