Big differences when it comes to “help friend” in west and east culture
I think it’s a very interesting topic. I can’t remember how many times we have been fighting on this especially when my Chinese friends ask for “help”. Each time he (SY) is going to say people are “abusing” me and in the end he is the one who has to fix everything. SY is European and I’m Chinese. We have been together for four years, and I think we are doing very well despite there are lots of small fights due to our different culture background. We always have a lot of different opinions when it comes to “help” friend. I’m going to list some of examples happened before and see what you guys think about them.
【Drop off】
Back in 2016, one of my friends (let’s call her K) from LA visited San Diego and asked if we can hang out together. I had to go to class at weekdays, so I invited her to our rental place to have hotpot for dinner at weekend. We were sharing the kitchen with other roommates at that time, so we didn’t have lots of food in case others feel that we take over the refrigerator. So after I invited her, we had to shop in Chinese store. On weekend, K came over a bit early,so we went to shop together. The Chinese grocery store is far away from where we live, it took more than one hour to go and back. We got there and pick up everything we need. Two hours was gone before we start cooking. Good thing is hotpot is easy, we just wash and chop everything and throw them in hotpot sauce soup. It was great dinner and we had a very good time. Even the landlord, who always cook hotpot with his Chinese girlfriend in the house said it smells good. After dinner we talked about half hour and it’s already 9 pm. The girl live in downtown San Diego with one of her friends. It’s not far, only about 15 minutes driving.We were saying bye-bye and K said her friend drop her off when she came over,and asked if we can sent her back. I said “Yes, of course, it’s half hour to go and back, not far, we can drop you off.” I only got a learning permit, so SY had to drive. He didn’t say anything on the way, but after we drop my friend off he was not happy. He said “Why? We spent more than two hours to shop, more than two hours to cook and eat, and after dinner she asked us to send her home.My friend will never ask me to do this. Are all the Asians like this?” I mean I kind of understand K just want to save money on Uber and think 30 minutes’ driving is nothing. Actually, the other day when we met in LA, she drove 30 minutes to send me home. So for me, it’s really just like “you help me this time, I help you next time”. But SY insist westerns would never ask their friend to do such a thing, and he think an adult should take care this kind of things themselves rather than bother others. I understand he was not happy because he is the one had to drive, I wish I can drive myself, and actually I think it’s a good way to learn, but of course he wouldn’t let me drive because it’s “very dangerous”.The other thing is that back in 2015, I was in China and SY visited me. I told K that he’s coming to China and she asked if SY can bring an IPhone back to China for her friend. I asked SY, he said “if it’s only a cellphone, its ok. She can meet me at the airport”. SY told her the flight day, time and gate number, but she was late on that day and SY had to wait her half hour. SY is a Virgo man and cares a lot to details, I guess he just doesn’t like someone who ask for help but show up late. Anyway, we had a very long discussion about this and that’s the first time we notice that we have a very different opinion about “help” friends.
【Ship Bag to China】
Still in the summer of 2016, one of my schoolmate in China asked if I can help him
buy a bag and ship it back to China. Actually there lots of international students
are doing this business, buying bags and makeups in America with lower price
and sell them back to China with higher price. Some people can even make a
living with this. I told my schoolmate I’m not familiar with this and I don’t
have any special way to buy the bag on discount and he might get a better deal
with others. I have to go to school and can only go to the store at the weekend
which may take longer time. He said he want someone he can trust to do it. I’m ok
to help him as a friend (actually we are not even friends, we know each other
in the first years of university but didn’t talk even a sentence in the past
ten years), but I don’t think it’s necessary to buy a $500 bag. Anyway, he said
he want it very much. I helped him to change his ￥to $ with one of my friends (He gave ￥to my friend and my friend gave me $), so he doesn’t have to go to bank to transfer
money. We received his $500, then went to Bloomingdale's to buy him the bag on
Saturday. I went to a Chinese shipping company after class on Monday, but
unfortunately the sales person forgot to take off the smart lock in the bag and
we didn’t notice it at all because he packed it in a big paper bag and it
didn’t beep when we left the store. The shipping company said they can’t
deliver it to China even the lock doesn’t beep and we have the receipt and
everything that shows we paid for the bag. So we have to take the bag back to
unlock it and come back to the shipping company (I don’t know why I didn’t go to
UPS, because people always say Chinese shipping company is cheaper, but after
ship the bag for $55, I think UPS maybe even cheaper). Anyway, I transferred different
buses in order to get to the shipping company which is far away from where we
live. It’s really too much, so I asked SY to drive me back to the shipping
company the second time. It’s a lot of driving and another Saturday was gone.
He was not happy and said why we have to do this for someone who is not even my
friend. I can’t say anything because I was thinking about to do this “sell bags
back to China” business and want to see how it works. On the other hand, I’m not
good at saying “No” to others. My schoolmate gave me extra 108 ￥(about $16) after he heard what happened, but comparing what we have done in order to ship the bag,it’s really nothing. Anyway, we argued a lot and he said it’s not going to work if I want to do this because “you have no idea how business works”.
【Paid for UPS】
This just happened last month. One of my high school classmate (let’s call him Q)
suddenly contacted me (he didn’t even say “Hi”, but just sent me tons of
message and said he need help).
He was selling machine to American client but ship to a wrong address (should
ship to client C who lives in KY, but ship to client J who lives in OK). Q want
me to help him to check which cost the least to ship from OK to KY. He said
it’s difficult to use google in China and hope I can quickly search online for
him. So I googled and told him that the cheapest is UPS, cost about $234, FedEx
cost about $275. He said he would use UPS. Q didn’t say anything so I thought
that’s it. The next day he text me again and said asked if I can help him to
pay UPS with $ and he pay me back in ￥.I think it’s easy since it’s just an online order, so I said “Ok, I can help you”. I got him the order and paid for UPS and sent him all the receipts that UPS gave me. The receipt shows UPS is going to pick up the machine May 21 from OK, clients J’s apartment front door, Monday and should be received by client C in KY by May 24, Thursday. I thought everything goes well, but somehow UPS didn’t pick it up on May 21. And Q asked if I fill in the clients J’s phone number. I told him it’s impossible to finish the order if the phone number was not fill in. I highly doubt that the client J in OK forgot to put the machine in the front door when UPS tried to pick it up and yes, he admit that he didn’t pick up one call from UPS. It means when UPS go and pick up he didn’t put the machine in his front door. Q asked again and again about the phone number and I told him that I fill in every information he gave me. I told him to ask the client J to call UPS with the information in the receipt. This keep going for another week and I have no idea what’s going and the machine still in OK until May 30. I was like “What the hell is going on!” Finally, the machined got picked upon May 31 and received by client C on Jun 3. I thought everything was over, then drama happened, UPS charged $80 more on our credit card and we didn’t know why.We had to call UPS and asked what’s going on, we sent them the receipt and explained everything. Eventually, UPS sent the $80 back to us. Of course, as you can imagine, SY was angry and hate this. I was speechless and don’t know why it always has this much trouble. Maybe I should just say “No” in the first place. We were fighting with each other like two years ago when we helped my schoolmate to buy the bag.
【Store 400 kg Goods 】
This one is kind of funny. Y is an old friend. We know each other for almost ten years. She is planning to open a Chinese milk tea shop and order a lot of stuff from China. I thought she already start doing business because she has been talking about this for more than half year. Y suddenly called at 11 pm one Friday night and said its emergency. I thought it’s about the baby because her due day is coming, but she said her goods are arriving in LA and want me to go to the port to check for her before she pay for the $2000 shipping. I said ok,give me the address. She said she doesn’t have the address and someone will call me and tell me. Sunday night she still told me to go to the port, but she called on Monday morning and said they don’t allow non-workers to go inside the port There is a dilemma that she doesn’t want to pay until make sure that’s her goods, but the shipping company wouldn’t let her see the goods until she pays,so they were going back and forth for millions times and couldn’t figure out what to do. Finally, she made a deal with the shipping company that she will pay half of the shipping first and they let me check her goods, if everything is fine, she will pay the other half immediately. In this case, she will have the goods ship to our garage first. SY is not happy because he doesn’t want 400 kg goods sitting in our garage, but Y really needs help. So I asked if it’s too big to fit in our garage. She said its 39 small boxes and shouldn’t take lots of space. I said “OK, just let me know when they are coming.” Their trucker driver called me and said they are coming on Tuesday 2 pm, I was waiting, but then they called and said can’t come until 5 pm. Anyway, the 39 boxes goods arrived at Tuesday 6 pm and I checked them with Y through video call and she said that’s her stuff. SY got home and saw all the stuff in garage and said “your friend is crazy, how can you do business like this?” He asked when Y is ordering truck to pick them up and I said they are still figuring out. He is not happy again because before they want to ship the goods to our place they said they will have them pick up by the following day. But then they could find a truck driver with a reasonable price and was told better to go with USPS. Y called me on Wednesday and asked if I can call the USPS that near our house and ask how much it cost to ship the goods to her city. I was busy at fixing something in our kitchen and told her she has to call it herself. She said she called but nobody pick up the phone, I told her to go online and put everything in online order and compare with USPS,UPS and FedEx and see which one is cheaper. She said it cost more than $2000 and it’s not going to work. SY keep asking when they are going to pick up the goods every day and I keep saying “I don’t know” and I have to keep pushing Y to figure out. She said she will go to the store and ask them in person. It’s already Friday and nothing happened. I mean I doesn’t it bother me since we do have enough space in the garage and SY can still park his car, but I also understand how SY feels when my friend is asking us to help them, which always ends up with tons of unexpected thing. Again, for me this always works like “We help each other in turns. I do you a favor this time and you do me a favor next time”,but for SY this is always like “I help them this time, I help them next time,when is the time they are going to help me?”
Honestly,I sometimes ask my friends to help me buy stuff in China and bring back to LA too, but of course, the people who help me and the people who ask for our help are not always the same. I think that’s how life works. You help others, others help others, and others may help you eventually, in one way or another. But SY said that he just feel he always help others but others are not help him (so far). He think that everybody is busy and has their own problems to solve, so it’s not fair that to ask others to solve your problem. Also he thinks that when we need help, they might not even there even exactly the same thing as they ask us to do. I think he is right at some point and I also think I’m right at some point, we can’t persuade each other but will try to do something in the middle.Sometimes I think its fun to have different opinions and you can learn from each other, but of course not the fighting part. Anyway, these are few stories between SY and me. Hope you enjoy reading this and I would like to see if others have similar stories and how do you guys solve the problems.