Last weekend, I met up with a few friends from school to eat Korean BBQ. We were several Chinese American undergrads, one Indian friend, one white friend, and one Chinese graduate student. Four were in the statistics department, and the rest of us were some combination of Econ/math. I was meeting our graduate student friend for the first time, and so we got to chatting about where we were from. In turned out that like my dad, my new friend Bo was a Tsinghua graduate. As we chatted in Chinese, my friend Raj blurted out-“我是印度人.” (wo shi yin du ren-literally, I am an Indian person).
“Wow,” I said, impressed. “Your Chinese is really getting good Raj!”
“Thanks,” Raj replied. “You know I have a Renren now?” he asked.
“No way! I don’t even have one,” I said, laughing, referring to the popular Chinese social networking site, the Facebook of China.
It turned out that Bo and his other grad student friends in the statistics department (dominated by students from China), had convinced him to get one.
“I couldn’t fill out my real name though,” Raj complained. ”The name section only takes up to three characters.”
“Isn’t R-a-j exactly three characters though?” I quipped.
“It said Raj isn’t a real name,” he pouted. We all burst out laughing. Eventually, Raj’s Chinese friends came up with a Chinese name for him to fill in. ”I now have three friends on Renren,” Raj said proudly. “Lauren, you should get a Renren too so we can be friends!”
As I thought about that, I realized how funny it was that of all of us at the table eating Korean BBQ, with most of us being Chinese American, the one person who had a Renren was our Indian friend. It just goes to show the power of sharing one’s culture, and the special insights and friendships that can develop as a result.
Now if only Renren would let us put more than three characters in…
上个周末，我跟几个同学一起去吃韩国烧烤。我们这群人中有几位是美国华裔本科生，一个是印度人，一个白人，还有一个是从中国来的研究生。我们当中除了四个统计系的学生以外，其他的都是同时学经济和数学的。这是我第一次和这个研究生见面，所以我们互相介绍一下我们是从哪里来的。从我们的谈话之中，我发现我的新朋友Bo，和我爸爸一样，是从清华大学毕业的。正当在我和我的新朋友用中文聊天的时候，我的朋友Raj突然用中文插进来：“我是印度人。”
“哇” 我很惊讶地说。“你的中文进步很大！”
“谢谢，”Raj回答。“你知道我现在有加入人人网吗？”他问我。
“不可能吧？连我都没有上人人网” 我笑着回答，人人网是现在很流行的中国社交网络，中国的Facebook。
原来是Bo和其他统计系的研究生（大多数都是中国人）说服Raj加入人人网的。
Raj抱怨道：“我无法用我真正的名字。名字的空白处只接受三个汉字。”
“R－A－J 不是正好三个字吗？”我打趣道。
他撅着嘴回答：“人人网说Raj不是真正的名字。” 我们大家都哄堂大笑。最后还是Raj的中国朋友给他起了一个中文名字，他是用这个中文名字加入人人网的。Raj很自豪地说：“我现在已经有三个人人网的朋友了，劳伦，你也应该加入人人网，那样我们就可以成为人人网朋友！”
仔细的想了一下，我意识到很有趣的是虽然大多数我们在这吃韩国烧烤都是美国华裔人，到是只有我们的印度朋友加入了人人网。这显示了文化交流和友谊的力量。
要是人人网能让我们输入三个字以上，那该多好！