We Can Know Each Other Better

The time was about 11:30 on a Saturday morning. It was still a couple minutes to go before the time we were supposed to meet. I moved a piece of window blind with my fingers to look at the street in front of my house. Cars stood in lines on both sides of the road. Only a group of pigeons were pecking and flapping its wings in the front yard. A noisy engine scared those pigeons a little bit. A Dodge truck was approaching my house. “It should not be her,” I thought, “A lady would not drive a truck like that.” That truck passed by my house without hesitation. Several minutes later, a pearl white Honda Accord stopped at the front gate, and a woman with sunglasses stepped out of the car. She read a piece of paper in her hand, which must have been the address I gave her on the phone. Then, she put her sunglasses on her forehead and smiled after looked at the house number on the wall. She took a baby out of the backseat, and walked towards the front door.

I could hear the footsteps so clearly that, even the sound of crushing sand and rocks. My heartbeat speeded up as the footsteps got closer and closer. “Tap-tap,” sounded a knock on the door. My hands turned sticky, they were sweating so badly. “Tap-tap”, my legs quivered, I could not go to the door immediately. I yelled silently from the bottom of my heart, “I am not ready to meet my first American friend!” “Tap-tap”, the door opened, a fragrance ran into my nose, the young women carried her baby in her arms with a big smile on her face. She was giving the message of friendliness. I choked, and I did not even know how to start our conversation. My mind went blank all of a sudden. She was blonde, and in good shape even though she had given birth not long before. “You must be Bruce, right? Hi, I am Shelly. We talked on the phone before…” Her greeting interrupted my gazing at her.

I met most of my American friends in Tucson through a program named “International Friends.” I would like to say the International friendship programs at colleges and universities are also effective ways of building up peaceful international relations. “International Friends” in Tucson is a Local organization that helps international students at The University of Arizona to find friends who are residents that live in Tucson as their host. These hosts help the students with their study and life in America. Shelly Smith’s family has been my host family since my first semester in America. I feel I am so lucky because Shelly is an amazing American person who is always willing to understand my culture, and wants to share her knowledge about America. All the activities I went through with her and her family helped me know more about America and the kindness of American people, which makes me feel like China and America are not so far away from each other. There are more than thirteen thousand students from all around the world who come to American colleges to study as international students each year since 2004 (IIE Network). When a local host helps an international student, both of them will understand the cultures and life in each other’s country in a direct way and also form a great friendship. If people in a country know more about other countries, they will show more concern and be more friendly to people from other countries, and this is a big help to the foreign affairs of their government and the cause of world peace and understanding.

The future of the world order may change, but the needs of worldwide peace and understanding among countries will never change. Both governments and citizens are responsible for the relationships between nations in our multipolar world. In order to have a powerful position in the modern world and provide its citizens a better and peaceful life, governments should focus on the most effective ways to form better relationships with other countries. In addition, people should also think not just about their own little life circle, but consider their ability to change the relationships between their own country and other countries through the “bottom-up” programs, which are always easy and effective ways to assist their governments’ efforts to build up peaceful international relations.