Since I was five years old, I have had the good fortune to travel all over the world. I have had the privilege of living in Europe, Africa and North America and have made many foreign friends there. My family, friends, and co-workers are always very interested and curious and shower me with questions like: How do you begin a friendship in a foreign country? Are they different from us? Do people in those countries value friendship? In fact, the framework and value of friendship is universal and comparable around the world. But the way friendship is expressed differs greatly from country to country. The difficulty when strangers from two countries meet is not a lack of appreciation for friendship but the assumption of sameness. They do not anticipate the diverse expectations and subtle differences of what constitutes friendship, how it comes into being and how it should be expressed. So, who is a friend? How should friends treat each other? That depends on where you are!

In the United States, society is highly mobile and it is quite common for people to move back and forth across the country for a new job, education, or many other reasons. The term friend can be applied casually to a wide range of relationships - to someone you worship with, to a close business associate, to a childhood playmate, or a trusted ally, either man or woman. They may be parents of the children's friends, a neighbor's guests, members of a committee, or business clients from another town or even another country.