A real hunger

Ever since I moved into the dorm, I have seen freshmen trying to be socialize, forming groups, seeking for clubs and communities. Individuals are thirsty for companion, starving for a sense of belonging, the same as Liu, the same as me and everybody else.

Liu, eventually, decided to move away from the McKnights to live with Chinese people, driven by the unbearable loneliness. Difference in culture, race and language made Liu feel like an outsider, or more exactly, is an outsider in America. That’s why he needs to be with other Chinese, being a normal person with his same race.

Sympathetic about his problem, I feel in the same way. Granted, my roommates treat me friendly, I am still alien to them, especially when they receive no response from me simply because I do not realize they are speaking to me. Difficulties in understanding a professional lecture may occur to me sometime in China, but in any events, responding or even greeting is never an obstacle when talking in Chinese. I must have been forming an image of an emotionless and speechless ghost, hanging around the dorm, silencing them to the point beyond tolerance. Having struggled several times to squeeze in their groups, it seems that the only things I could contribute is to let them slow down their speaking pace, listen to my opinion about their conversation which should have been ended a few minutes ago, and start over their present conversation without a simple reaction towards my words, like nodding. Loneliness is not about a lonely individual in solitude, but about a lonely individual who is exposed to a world of liveliness.

To be with people, even strangers, in our own country is a real hunger for belonging where everybody shares the same loneliness. People seek for similarities since differences and bizarreness always torture them to the point of depression. However this is a double-edged sword. Since we determine to study aboard for a better comprehension of American culture, it will be meaningless if we stick with people in our own country. Living in a different culture tend to shapes us to be lonely men, but how to be a positive lonely person with dreams fulfilled at the end is all depends on ourselves.