Practices of Making Friends and Convivial Experiences Living in a Foreign Land: Taiwanese Immigrant Restaurateurs and Housewives in Belgium

ABSTRACT

This seminal study examines how Taiwanese immigrants make friends and their convivial experiences interacting with social others in the host society in Belgium. In this study, the author successfully recruited 24 Taiwanese immigrant restaurateurs and housewives to participate in semi-structured interviews during the author's three years of fieldwork as the Chinese language and cultural courses teacher at the Ecole Sun Yat Sen Brussels. The study finds that sharing foods with others is one of the important friendshipmaking strategies in migrants' everyday life. In so doing, food does not only provide its material and nutrition functions, but it also makes many social meanings and functions for people who participate in activities and assist them to obtain sense of belonging, group identity and emotional support. In addition to food sharing, social media use is another vital tool for Taiwanese immigrants to make friends and cultivate their social networks living in a foreign country. However, a significant difference in using social media in making friends exists between different genders and age generations. With regard to convivial experiences, most of the research participants had positive experiences interacting with locals and social others before the COVID-19 pandemic. As they successfully accumulated such convivial experiences, these experiences, in turn, helped them construct a cosmopolitan identity and improve their personal inter-cultural competences. However, after the pandemic has worsened, Taiwanese immigrants have faced discriminations due to their race and migrant backgrounds more frequently. On the contrary, the frequencies of convivial interactions between Taiwanese immigrants with locals and social others have obviously decreased because of the pandemic. Notably, although Taiwanese immigrant restaurateurs and housewives may have different experiences and practices in making friends, they have similar social network characteristics as they have more intra-ethnic than interethnic friends and social ties. In addition, the limitations of the study and the suggestions for further research will also be discussed in the article. © 2022, City University of Hong Kong Press. All rights reserved.