Chinnese

as there arnt to many foreigners in the north

 it's fine the Rock star treatment is great for awhile

but explaning your nationality can get boaring after the first couple of weeks

I always get asked are you Russian and then are you  American and I always

answer

NO BLOODY WAY!

Chinese

In my little village there is one other laowai, but he's married and is always playing with his kid when our paths cross, so I don't bother him for more than a hello. (Though I did see one foreign couple drive by on a scooter once, or my eyes could have been playing tricks on me).

The only foreigners I hang with in China are from Taiwan.

All my friends in China are Chinese...not 1 foreigner...although I have met and drank with a few here and there (and they were all pretty nuts).

And yes phil...being a rockstar is tough sometimes....ok...maybe not.

Oh that is a difficult question to answer as it is situation dependent. The foreigners I know are primarily from work. I enjoy having a private life away from work and therefore tend to spend my time with chinese friends that I met. There are however times you just want a normal conversation over a beer/game of pool so I would opt to go out with one of my workmates. I do know that the Americans seem to stick together in large packs hehe with no chinese folks about. 

My circumstances have however changed and I now spend all my time with my chinese girlfriend and her family. Each to their own however and whatever makes you more comfortable.

Well, now that I am at home taking care of my child, I stay only with one or two foreigners of my compound, mainly because our children like to play together.

Then, it depends on my Chinese wife if she has friends coming over.

But frankly speaking.....I see Chinese around every day wherever I go (supermarket, market, park, bank, etc).....so I am pretty much happy just to hang around with foreigners for a while. The best would be that they also speak either French or Italian (my mother tongues) than only English as I am also bored to speak English every day....

I hang out with Chinese people. I only know one other foreigner in this city, a lovely older woman who teaches English to doctors at a hospital. I went to the English corner that she has once, but haven't seen her since. I've seen other foreigners, but I haven't sought them out. I don't care about having foreigner friends, I just care about having good friends.

In my situation, I spend all day around Chinese.  My family is Chinese (wife, mom-in-law, ayi, kids, mostly), all of my employees are Chinese and between the two groups I am lucky if I get a few hours to myself once evey couple of weeks.  When I do, I tend to hang with foreigners simply because I just want to communicate and not worry about my bad Chinese or their bad English or causing some sort of misunderstanding.  I just want to have an easy chat over a beer or pizza.

I hang out more with Chinese because, quite simply, I am in China.

I do have a good group of foreign friends whom I like to get together with and relate to often.

In terms of actually trusting, it puts a severe dint in all these people I "hang out with".

A good friend is hard to find in China, and I am very fortunate to have several (both Chinese and foreign).

i hang out with mostly chinese. just because there are are very few forigners in the area i live in,  but my best friend in china is a british guy. also most of my friends here are girls. i dont know why but making friends, i mean real frends, with chinese dudes is hard. it never gets beyond the point of ganbeing and telling you how good friends you are. it seems realy forced and fake i just cant get in to it.

and i do like to sit down and talk with forigners, i dont have to talk slowly. i can make a joke and not have to explain it. just hang out have a few beers  (no ganbei) and chat with out having to worry about what you say or how you say it. 

Only Chinese as I have not met any foreigners in Shenyang. To be honest I would like to get to know a few if there were any around with similar interests etc, but I don't go to any of the expat drinking holes so I guess my chances are slim. My relos and local friends look after me pretty well I must say but it would be nice to shoot the breeze and share some experiences with others.

Only Chinese as I have not met any foreigners in Shenyang. To be honest I would like to get to know a few if there were any around with similar interests etc, but I don't go to any of the expat drinking holes so I guess my chances are slim. My relos and local friends look after me pretty well I must say but it would be nice to shoot the breeze and share some experiences with others.

only chinese, i did not come to china to meet other arrogrant americans or canucks , brits or aussies. still love you but yah get on my nerves and i'm sick and tired of working with a$$hole foreign teachers. sometimes i wish i had a gun

Wow for how huge the expart bar scene is... I'm impressed that noone has claimed the laowai side yet.  I'll confess, if you asked me this question back in '08, I would be on that side.

 I never hang out with foreigners.  Only spend time with one foreigner for more than 30 minutes and that was because we had a common Chinese friend.

neither , I spend most of my time alone . At home I live with a Chinese girl and an American girl, so that's evenly divided

I've got 1 good expat friend and 1 good Chinese friend, time is split pretty well between them, I see them both about twice a week, usually seperately (I've hung out with a few different Chinese people, but really only 1 regularly).

Expat friend time usually involves booze, Chinese friend time usually involves food.

For hanging out at the moment, it's foreigner all the way. But, as above, that's mostly by situation and circumstances. I tend to do stuff by myself, I live alone, and I like it that way. Here, I have a couple of Chinese acquaintances, but they have their own lives and own families. (I've only been here for a couple of months).

OTOH, when I was in my last job, most of hang-out was with Chinese, with bulk-lots with the other teachers at the place I worked down at the local watering hole (which may be only  once every week or 2 - or longer).

I have lots of ppl on my QQ, which obviously means most are Chinese, whom I will chat with a few of them on a regular basis. There's only 1 foreigner on there (IIRC).

And, as others have said, it's damn good to just be able to talk without the language barrier issue... even between fellow native-English expats, it's nice just to chew the fat with my country-persons (oh, and Kiwi's as well...), because of those little nuances that the northern hemisphere ppl just don't get!

Hmmm...I just kinda hang out with my wife, or by myself. When we do go out, we meet folks that she knows, so it is all Chinese there. At other times it's her family, so again, Chinese. It is not like there are not other foreigners in the city, but I don't usually see them. Once in a great while I'll see a westerner walking down the street. Since I don't live on campus, I don't hang ourt with some of the other teachers except whenn I'm at school.

I mostly hang with Chinese instead of stuck up stick up the butt self important  "stiff" foreigners. Any questions kids?

Most of my closest friends are foreigners --
but we're all pretty like minded. We pretty much all speak Chinese with an above average level of fluency and understand Chinese culture more than most foreigners.

We don't eat at McDonalds or Subway every meal and we love going enjoying the simple things of China. 

It's difficult to find foreigners that actually enjoy being able to sit at a chuan stand and enjoy sitting on the squat sized stools in the tents with a nice brew of Ha Pi.

It's annoying whenever I decide to go to the expat restaurants and I see the same exact people there every time I go. It's kinda sad ..