Not the results I expected.

Unexpected Results

If you have been following my posts, it won't come as a surprise that I eat with the students every day and befriend them. That's why I usually eat at the canteen. I also encourage the students to do the same, to not just eat at the canteen, but to also make new friends with other students as well.

However, what most of them fail to understand is that I also face rejections when trying to make friends. There can be various reasons for that, but the main one is my inability to speak Chinese, which leads to many misunderstandings.

Let me give you an example of what happened yesterday. I was standing in front of a food booth, trying to decide whether to eat there or not, when a student greeted me and mentioned that the food there was delicious. They offered to help me get the food if I had any trouble. At that point, I thought we would eating together, so I agreed to get the food from there. After getting my food, I noticed that they weren't getting any themselves, and after I got my food they said goodbye because they were going to eat on another floor. That was not what I expected, so I looked for another student to sit and talk with while eating. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on my side, as I ended up sitting with a student who didn't speak English and avoided engaging in conversation with me. After two attempts, most people would give up and call it a day, but I decided to give anther try.

Since I was still hungry, I got something else to eat and attempted to find another student to sit with. On the third try, I finally found the best student for my situation, those are the students who are majoring in English so they were proficient in English, and most of the time when I sit with kind of student, we had enjoyable conversations and a good time together because there was no language barrier. It also served as English practice for them, so they appreciate the opportunity as well.

After eating with them, I even got something else to eat on the first floor. I suppose I was quite hungry yesterday. Coincidentally, as I was leaving the second floor, I greeted a couple of students and noticed that they were now eating on the first floor. Naturally, I joined them and engaged in conversation. Usually people who say “Hi” to you , or greet you, or even establish eye contact from a distance, are the one you can approach expecting a very good interaction.

The lesson from this experience is that you can't lose many times in a row. If someone rejects you or you don't get what you want on the first try, it means you are one step closer to achieving your goal. If you didn't succeed the second time, now you are two steps closer. Keep trying because success may be just around the corner.

Fortunately, I recorded those incidents yesterday. However, I am only posting the positive interactions on YouTube, so the first 2 rejections was not in the video, but rest assured, I did fail twice before finding good company to eat with yesterday.

I believe life is like that for everybody, and knowing this, I hope you continue to strive for what you want. Success usually follows failure, and those who are afraid to try because of the fear of failure will never succeed. This applies to almost anything in life, not just making friends like I was attempting to do yesterday.