Having a foreign friend

Yes, I put a lot of New Girl gifs, but this series is too cool okay ?

Hi guys it's Em (again) !

When I published this post about "Things people say when you're learning Chinese", I told you I was going to write a post about what it is like having a Chinese (or foreign in general) friend since I met one of my bestfriends during my first year of university and she is a Chinese girl who decided to study in France.

So, without further ado, let's jump right into the core of the subject.

Whaddup.

1 - Improving your language skills

   Since I'm studying Chinese and my friend is from China, she is always glad to help me with my Chinese. And in reverse, I help her say the appropriate words or whatever for certain types of situations - like, the whole thing with using the polite "vous" form and stuff in French. Explanation : I've been studying Chinese (in France) for almost four years now, while she studied French in highschool back in China, and she has been in France for three years now, so her level in French is way better than mine is in Chinese. Do you get it ?

   Also, when she doesn't know how to express something in French or if she doesn't understand what I'm trying to say to her, we just say it in English. See ? There's always a solution and a way to speak multiple languages. 

On the road to try and understand each other with a contagious good mood.

2 - ...But also having a good laugh

   Speaking different languages with a friend doesn't mean it has to be fully serious right ? Well, fun fact : my friend always forgets what the French word for "spider" means, she everlastingly thinks it means "slug", so everytime I tell her something like "Oh my, there was a spider right next to my bed !" she is literally confused and I have to tell her the word in English, before she confesses she thought it was another sort of bug. Or, sometimes, I don't understand what she's trying to say in French and I stare at her with a weird face, so we eventually just burst out laughing. And that's how happy moments and memories happen, kids. (Woaw that sounds like I'm a grandma or something, but yeah you got my point)

 Me. Or her when she has no clue what I'm saying.

And then us. 

Maybe the grandma gifs were not a good idea since I literally just stated that I'm not an old woman, I swear.

3 - Enriching your culture and getting to know about their habits

   You obviously knew that this one was coming. Buuuut, yeah. It is very true. We can get into deep talks where we just open about how our family does this or that, and what customs we have that are bound to our homeland's culture. For example, when she comes over to drink some tea and discuss, she always laughs about the fact that we call "black" tea this way since Chinese people call it "Red Tea - 紅茶" (she is pretty true, we name it "black" because it's the darkest colour for a sort of tea, but it is indeed more red than black when there's only the beverage left). She also decided to invite me and two other friends over for a Chinese dinner so that we could see what real Chinese food (not the one you order in your favourite Chinese restaurant) tasted like. It was obviously delicious, annnd we had a really good time. What could we had asked more ? And so on. Plus, let's not forget that she is the sweetest person and she gave me a card that was written in Mandarin and a traditional Chinese lucky charm for the Chinese New Year and for my birthday. The first card was a world map with flags of each country drawn on them, and the second one was the Andy Warhol's painting of Mao Zedong. References to the fact that we can make friends all over the world, and to her country's most famous president up to now. I have many other examples, but it would turn into a novel if I wrote them all. So I'm going to end this part here, and yay for the culture enrichment !

   -- Oh, and one last thing : she confessed to me that she is so fond of French culture (and food) (which is part of the culture) now, that when she travels to other European countries, she misses our famous baguette !

Totally off topic but here is Jon Snow Kit Harrington sipping tea. Yeap. I bet his Britih brain is 100% sure that it is black tea and not red tea. You (still) know nothing, Jon Kit.

That is it for this new post guys. I hope you enjoyed it, and tell me if you also have foreign friends you met while in another country, or if it was in yours. :) Just leave your experience in the comments ! 

Bye ♡