by Ziyi Wang | Finance | Class of 2023
Academic Term of Essay Subject: Fall Semester 2019

After spending two months in America completing my college course, I find that the difference in how people relate to each other are quite big. In China, people look apathetic when you first meet them, but when you get along with them for enough time till they feel familiar with you, it is easy to become a friend with them. However, in America, people all over the place are very friendly when I first contact with them and they helped me many times even if I had never meet them before. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to become a friend with them. The talks I had with Americans are always some basic things like what’s the answer of a question, what are their names, or they ask me about where I from. There is no further conversation. Just like what I heard from an old saying: Asian people are coconut. They are closed when you just meet them, but if the hard shell was broke, it is easy to get familiar with them. Americans are peaches. They have soft flesh on outside, but it is hard to break the core.

In my opinion, this feature is delightful. In China, people at the street, shops, restaurants are always cold to customers, and sometimes my mood gets blue because the manner of waiter. However, when I first came to restaurant in American, I surprised. People greeted to me every time I walked in. Though they might not really care about how you are, it feels really pleasant when someone asks about your feeling. Furthermore, most students in Miami University are friendly too. Whenever I walk in to a door, I will leave it until the person behind me can touch the door and every time they will say thanks.

Americans have the features I really like, just like the examples I mentioned above. However, where are still something I can’t understand. Whenever I step into a new class and met a new professor, he/she will tell me that I can call them by using their first name. That’s a big difference with the teacher in China. Teachers in China usually require students to call them by their last name and add the title, for example “Teacher Wang”. Here’s the confusing part: I can talk to a teacher normally in a class room, but when comes to email, it suddenly becomes so formal. First, I need to add a title, and then is my name, main thing. Finally, after the end, I need to write some word for greeting, like “sincerely”. It is so formal compares to the conversation in class. In the end, what attitude should I have toward the professor? I might understand this part after spending more time in Miami University.