Slop.

I think very famously if you move to a new place with a new culture it's hard to make friends writ large. You're an unknown unknown and getting to know you is not the path of least resistance.

I was at a foreign MMA gym one time. I attended a striking class for my first day nobody paid me any attention (I'm a mediocre striker). But after the grappling day, because I'm a BJJ brown belt, everyone wanted to know my name, where I'm from, and they were impressed with my knowledge of the language. I come back the next day and the front desk person asks "you're the brown belt, right?" I don't think they were basally curious that a foreigner was there, but the second I showed that I was exceptional at this hobby they had it was, by some mechanism, enough to want to talk to me. I've rolled with a visitor at the gym only to find they were a UFC fighter and only at that point wanted to learn more about them, so it's mutual.

But here's the thing, I think if you want to do something and you can then that's reason enough. Even if your motivation is silly. Even if you get BTFO, nobody likes you, it wasn't a max win, and you have to move back moving abroad is a romantic and adventurous thing to do. If you tell me that you moved to China because you're a leftist, you saw a cool postcard, and you weren't doing anything important in America I'd think you were rad.