让你在异国他乡也不感孤单

当初到一个陌生的国家，陌生的城市，你是不是会感觉到孤单，很难融入的集体中去？在北京，为了让新来的人们能很好的过渡，1994年几个外国人建立了一个小组，我们看看他们是怎么解决这个问题的吧。

Finding others in the same boat-so to speak-can make all the difference. Beijing INN offers all kinds of activities to fit the social needs of new expats. Some opt for an afternoon at the market, a day at the museum, or maybe a chatty coffee morning.

Today, the INN meet up is a coffee hour held in the Bookworm, a local Sanlitun bookstore. Around twelve women and one man from all different social backgrounds and nationalities gather to sip cappuccino and discuss a variety of topics.

Sara Platto is from Italy and works in Beijing as a veterinarian. Most of her day is filled with work and family responsibilities, which doesn't leave her much time for a social life.

After repeated encouragement from a friend, Platto found herself at her first coffee morning.

"Well, I like it. It's very informal and everybody can speak anything they have on their mind. And you can have a good coffee and make new friends and exchange ideas. And I was listening, people have holidays in Tibet or Yunnan so it's very good to have new information and especially maybe new friends; it's good."

These coffee meet-ups are also instrumental for meeting people outside of work. This was the case for Jamie Forman from Texas who moved to Beijing four months ago to teach English.

"This is my first time abroad and it's been nice to have other people that can understand the experiences you're going through because they're either going through or have been through it before. My first time was a couple times ago. I was kind of nervous because I'm not good I don't talk a lot during group things. I was the first one to get here and then everyone started coming and everyone was very friendly, so it was nice to get to talk to a lot of other people and it made me feel like I wasn't so alone in this huge city."

Others, like Suzanne Marquard from New York were already familiar beforehand with groups of this kind even before moving to Beijing. Marquard has been thankful for the availability of social groups like INN ever since her first experience as an expat in London.

"It really helped; I had gone through months on my own trying to find places and do things, even in the same language, it really was difficult. And once I met people who had similar experiences, or even people with different experiences. It was so much more open than when you're back home, you tend to stick with people like you."

The wide variety of expats in Beijing means that these similar interest do bring together women from all over the world who wouldn't normally meet.

Many attend the meet-ups for friendships and also for practical tips to make life here easier. It may be as simple as knowing where to buy something or how to open a bank account.

Chetansi Markandeya is leading the group discussion and helps organize activities at INN. She arrived eighteen months ago with her husband also knowing little about life in China.

"You get to tap into the collective experience of all these people, they come from diverse backgrounds. So, for example, I'm from India and so I think, for my cooking, I have specific needs; I want spices and vegetables. And I had friends who told me, 'Go to San yanli, and you'll find south China vegetables which are similar, kind of similar to Indian vegetables.' And I remember that very clearly, because of these two American ladies who are from Alabama and they have similar vegetables and they said, 'Let us take you,' and I went and that market was the first time I saw local vendors selling vegetables, it was my first Chinese experience."

She notes that women may have an easier time than men socially adapting because they accept that they will need to go and create a new social life.

Suzanne Marquard adds that, luckily, the online world has also helped women to connect.

"The access to the internet anywhere in the world is not the same as it is now. So, all I had to do was Google, 'international groups Beijing,' and I came up with a whole list. Ten years ago, you wouldn't have been able to do that."

INN seeks to try and help those newcomers to feel a bit more a home in this ever-expanding Chinese metropolis that is home to millions. In a city this big, it's nice to know that something as simple as a favorite vegetable or similar taste in films can create an unexpected fellow expat friend.

For CRI, I'm Andrea Hunt