Relationship – friends

Can you find a friend in this sea of people?

Relationship is difficult for me it seems. Here, I’m talking about friendship. Some people will tell you that it might be as simple as starting a conversation first, but for someone like me living in a foreign land, that’s a pretty daunting task.

To be honest, most of us only hang out with those we are comfortable with, or those who speak a similar tone with us, be it language, interest, religion or whatsoever. So naturally, I had less friends when I’m here in South Korea compare to when I was in Malaysia. Most of the friends that I had when I was studying in university were those fellow students that came with me. Back then I didn’t bother much about making new friends since I had the mind-set of “I’m the alien and I should let them strike the first conversation”.

And also being the cautious person I am, I’m always wary of that most people would only befriend someone so that they can benefit from them. By experience we  also know that there are many kinds of people out there trying to get us too, waiting to back stab us at any moment for whatever reasons.

But as life and time goes by, we would get the chance to meet loads more good people around us if we spend a little bit more effort to seek them out. I had been skeptical from the beginning about this last time since one of the stereotypes about Koreans is that they are not really that friendly with anyone, always arrogant (to fellow Asians at least), particularly those from Seoul. But being off school and stepping into the 8-to-8-working world, I have been forced to re-construct my social circle among the locals since I was alone.

Maybe I was fortunate enough because most of the people who I had befriended up til now are really good people, whom I can trust and would give me a hand when I’m in trouble. So I had concluded that I was wrong, that there exist friendly people everywhere, even at my work place.

Right now, I have people I consider friends, and friends that I consider like my own brothers and sisters which I had never thought of. Even though some of them are from the management level and significantly older than me, I am able to communicate with them well, sharing our thoughts, our ups and downs together, talking about anything and everything. Mind you, S. Koreans always have this social hierarchy that’s really though to handle, and also the language barrier that always hinders me, but they were good to overlook that most of the time.

Furthermore, I was too blessed with other foreign friends that I had met, from work and from social interaction. There are so many things to learn from them since they are from all walks of life and have traveled more, and have more experience in life compare to what I have seen. So, now I had realized that I missed out some great opportunities of meeting great people while I was studying, and also realizing that 1 really close friend is better than 5 superficial friends.

It is nice to have people to interact with even in the age of social networking where most people would face their smart phones screens poking their friends on Facebook and sending tweets rather than talking to someone face to face. All in all, be careful while befriending someone and we shall benefit from each other and who knows this world might become a better place to live in.