Last week, a friend of mine kindly invited me and another friend to his house for dinner. Over steaming bowls of pork ribs and dumplings, we spoke about each others' experiences at Kellogg so far.

The most interesting thing we discussed (apart from me wanting to get into Booth) were our different perceptions and experiences with friendship, both in general and during out time at Kellogg.

What is 'Friendship'?

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a friend as, "a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations"

However, what a 'friend' means to one person, from one culture, may be completely different to what a 'friend' means to another person from a different culture.

Friendship in China

My dinner-hosting friend is an MBA student from China. From what he described, the word 'friend' has a very specific implied meaning in China. It refers only to the close group of non-family/work people with whom you have a close and meaningful relationship (akin to a 'best friend' or 'close friend' in Western culture).

'Friends' in China regularly meet up to socialise and engage in shared activities. This includes eating, drinking and chatting late into the night, even during a weekday. The regularity with which 'friends' in China meet up is much more frequent than the weekly (at most) catch-ups I would have with my friends back in Sydney. This behaviour seemed similar to my friends in Saudi Arabia who would catch-up on an almost nightly basis with their friends in a Straha ('man-cave') that they rented as a group of friends (more on that in another blog post).

'Friends' in China would also have a much stronger level of commitment and support towards one another compared to 'friends' in Western culture. Chinese 'friends' would even go to the extent of helping each others' parents and families, something that I wouldn't imagine doing with my own friends.

Beyond one or two circles of friendship (where a circle loosely represents closeness and familiarity to the person), Chinese people would stop referring to the people as 'friends' and would instead refer to them as 'acquaintances'. In this case, most of the people I have met at Kellogg would be considered 'friends' and not 'acquaintances'.

Friendship in America

An anecdote that was mentioned in a Kellogg cultural session for international students was that most Americans will tell you they want to grab a coffee or lunch after meeting you. However, they don't really mean it and you shouldn't be disappointed when the proposed catch-up never happens...

The term 'friend' seems to be used with similar carelessness for friendships in America (and the Western world to some extent). Apart from close or good friends, which resemble the Chinese definition, 'friends' tend to refer to any loose acquaintance who is someone who you have met at least once, have had more than a brief encounter and do not dislike. Interactions between 'friends' can seem superficial at times can seem superficial at times (“Hey. How’s it going? Great”) and there can be some level of hesitation or mistrust to increasing your commitment to a 'friend' and/or being vulnerable and opening up to them.

Where do I stand at the moment?

Now that it has been 6 weeks since orientation (even though it seems much longer), I feel like I have met around half of my class in some form or the other, making a lot of loose acquaintances and friends. Beyond that, I am starting to build deeper relationship with a few smaller groups of people (you know who you are) but I feel that I am still far away from experiencing what I had with my close friends back home.

What am I doing to build deeper relationships?

It's very easy to not want to build deeper relationships and I've often found myself using proximity to a person or a few brief interactions as evidence of close friendship, even when I know nothing about the other person.

To build deeper relationships, I am forcing myself to go beyond the superficial and get to know people on a deeper level.

Part of this comes from actually making myself excited to learn more about the people I know (which is not the easiest thing for me). Having begun asking my friends deeper questions, I have been surprised at how excited I was to get to know my friends better.

Part of this also comes from asking people deeper and more meaningful questions, especially about their aspirations, their families and their personal challenges. One thing I am especially curious to try is to ask people questions from this famous NY Times article about The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.

Part of this also comes from making the explicit trade-off to focus on building deeper relationships with a smaller number of people and avoid the FOMO of meeting as many of my classmates as possible. I'll have slightly less than 2 years to meet everybody else...

My ask to you!

What do your friendships look like? Are they closer to the Chinese model or the American model?

Are you trying to build closer, more meaningful relationships? If so, what are you doing?