Third Culture Building Between Intercultural Friends

As contacts between people of different cultural backgrounds become more often and extensive due to globalization, the possibility of forming intercultural friendships has also been greatly increased. Frequent contacts do not necessarily lead to intercultural friendships however. More often than not, these are loosely friendship-like relationships or causal relationships between Chinese and foreigners.The concept of"third culture"is a special form of culture that arises when people from different national cultures interact for a specific common purpose. Intercultural friends are in the process of building a third culture by constantly negotiating their commonalities and differences. This thesis delineates three stages of third culture building: initial interaction, an exploratory phase and the stability phase.Using a grounded theory process, this study is based on in-depths interviews of eight foreigners and nine Chinese, among whom there are three intercultural friend dyads. From an indigenous perspective, the study found that ingroup and outgroup distinction is the biggest hurdle to overcome for the Chinese to initiate and develop an intercultural friendship. Shared experience is the primary reference used by the Chinese to decide whether they can enter into a friendship. The concept of yuanfen (destiny, arrangement) precludes the Chinese from making efforts to initiate and develop an intercultural friendship. Different roles of community network, implicit communication and culture knowledge are the repetitive themes emerged from this study affecting intercultural friendship formation.Several main strategies adopted by intercultural friends to consolidate their relationship are also discussed. Besides daily interactions, openness, providing assistance and positivity are the most frequently used strategies cited by the participants in this research project.Conclusions are made on decisive factors influencing third culture building from the Chinese perspective. Limitations of this study are discussed and suggestions for further studies are also made.