Questions on friendship in Taiwan
I (a woman) recently traveled to see my friend from college from Taiwan. I (from the west) let her know that I was coming for a few months in advance. We’ve also discussed me visiting the last few years. When I got here she didn’t really have anything planned at all. I’m not sure if I should find what she has done as rude or just a cultural difference. I don’t really know that much about Taiwan other than through her.
Here’s the run down:
We met in up later in the day to go to the club on the first day. We stay up all night until 6 in the morning. She brought along some friends to the club. She asked if it was okay to bring friends before and I agreed. I however did not know how lonely I would feel because I do not know Mandarin well at all. I booked a hotel for us before and she ends up staying at a friend’s place to sleep. I did not want to stay at their house because I don’t feel comfortable staying with someone I just met. On the second day she says she has some things planned so I wait until 2:00 to get the day ready so they can sleep. She pushes the meet up so she can eat. I ask again when we are meeting up. She says 5:00 at an ice cream place. She then says she’ll be late because they’re renting motorbikes. I walk to the ice cream shop. She then tells me on the phone that I need to get a taxi to the next place because her and her friends don’t want to carry me on one of the bikes. It this point I am upset because we have not seen each since the night before. I feel like I’m being ditched in a foreign country I don’t know the language of or culture that well. I tell her I don’t want to meet up for the day because I’m tried and want to sleep. I take the high speed rail to next city we’re going to and stay at a hotel (I was supposed to stay are her place).
The next day she has work until night. I tell her that I wanted to catch up with her alone because it feels really lonely here. We meet up at her work and then go to hot pot with her friends. They are very kind but there is a big language barrier. We go to her place and it is not clean at all. It was very messy. I feel like an afterthought like I wasn’t important enough to even clean the house for. I brought a whole of things from the US and bought some pastries from a cute bakery before meeting up with her to give her.
We spent a day together but nothing was planned. This whole meet up has made me very sad. I spent a lot of time and money getting here. I tried really hard to make her know that I appreciate her as a friend but I don’t feel the same from her. I don’t know if I’m just taking things too personally maybe it maybe a cultural difference. I left and there wasn’t a big good or anything just a “bye bye” and she went to work. Is this normal in Taiwan??
*Edit- I just want to clear up none of this is romantic at all. She’s my friend from college. We are nothing like that at all. I don’t like that a lot of comments are assuming that and it’s really icky. I just thought she wasn’t being a good friend but there could be should culturally that I’m just not seeing.