Interview 1
11/21/2012
Eng 191 section 28
Interviewer: Nick C-A
Interviewee: Xianping
H
Country: China
Preparations:
Before
interviewing, I set up my questions, objectives, and technology. I begin by
looking through the class set of questions to find ones that I felt would help
me learn the most about China. I rearranged these questions in a way I felt
would make sense to ask and put them into three sub categories: Intro,
Questions about China, Concluding questions. The intro questions were designed
to be personal and easy questions to help the interviewee open up. The
Questions on China all related to cultural values to ideas that would teach me
about the country. The Concluding questions were courtesy questions for the
interviewee allowing them to ask me questions to feel that they had gained
something from the interview. The objectives of my questions were all related
to subcategories of Chinese culture. My first objective was different though
because it tried to understand how the interviewee fit into Chinese society.
The five other objectives were about Chinese youth, education, religion,
holidays, and foods. Due the required transcription, I needed to find a way to
record the interview. My iPhone has a built in application to record audio so I
decided to use that.
One of
the most difficult parts of this assignment is finding a Chinese exchange
student, approaching them, and securing the interview. As of the time of
writing this I’ve only secured two of the three required interviews. For
Xianping though, I first had to find a place to where I could talk to a Chinese
student. In our class there are about ten Chinese students so with the professor’s
permission, I looked at the other section of students for English 191 section
27 for Chinese students and found three. I sent them all an email asking for an
interview and Xianping accepted. Another student also replied to the email and
accepted.
Interview Report:
Once I
had found my interviewee, we had to set up a date and place to do the
interview. Communication was easy using email and we both had time free on the
weekend so we decided on a Sunday interview. We also decided the library would
be a good place to go. I brought a sheet of paper with my questions to use a
guideline during the interview. I arrived early to find that the majority of
library was not open on Sunday, so I looked around the building for a quiet
private spot for the interview and waited for Xianping to arrive.
The
interview went pretty smoothly because Xianping opened up and answered my questions
well. From what I learned through the interview, she comes from a city called
Louli that is located in central southern China. She decided to become a
foreign exchange student because she knew people who had done it. She decided
St. Cloud because it was where the person she knew had gone and she also had
relatives who lived in the twin cities. She’s twenty and wants to graduate with
a degree in nursing to allow her to help people. This is currently her second
semester attending St. Cloud.
From my
perspective, I felt that the interview went over quite well. There were parts
of the interview that I felt went very well, some of the information was very
interesting, and some parts of the interview went very poorly. The first I
noticed that was going well in the interview was just me and Xianping
communicated very positively. Before I ever started recording we exchanged a
few words and it made the process feel more natural. This allowed for Xianping
to answer questions easily and not feel obliged to stay exact. The question
that I felt that was answered most in depth was the about major religions in
the country. We covered the most popular religion, who practices, different age
groups and their practice, and how religion ties in with family. All this more
then answered my question.
As we
went through my questions the religion topic came up and I found something she
said very interesting. This was that she had came over to the United States and
had adopted Christianity which I find to be quite interesting. This jumped off
the page because if I became a foreign exchange student, I strongly feel I would
not adopt any religions. This is because I was raised Christian and switching
in a foreign place would seem odd to me. So I asked her had she been not been
raised in a certain religion and she replied no and that her parents had given
her responsibility to choose her own belief system. This is quite a bit
different from American normality where American families will teach their
children to follow their religion.
Not all
parts of my interview went as good I had planned and turned out poorly. I wasn’t
too attached to my reference sheet but I did try too much to get the questions
off. The problem with this is that I tried to keep the question in context of
what we were currently talking about in way she would understand. I tried to
rephrase questions but realized the way I was wording them didn’t make much
sense would change my sentence mid sentence which led to her having to ask me
to repeat the question a few times. Also there was a definite language barrier
which caused her to have to look up a few words online which would stop
conversation. I tried to stop this from happening by asking her little easy
questions while she was looking them up like when asked her how long she had
been the school while she looked up the word Idol. Also I didn’t repeat any of
what she had just said which is a good way of letting the interviewee know you
are listening.
Country Report:
The
country China is known for its enormous size and population which causes it to be
very influential from a global perspective. China is the most populated country
with 1.3 billion citizens making it have about 18.5% of the world’s population (2).
By land area china is the second largest country in the world (1). Both of
these statistics allow for china to have a long history, large world economic
influence, and large cultural differences throughout the country.
Anthropological
study of China points to civilization first sprouting in china sometime before
3.5 thousand years ago. (1) Modern China is a massive country in land area that
could not all be governed by an ancient society. The most populated area being
in eastern China was split up into dynasties which would commonly fight for power
and resource. This dynasty styled governance lasted until 221bc when the Qin
Dynasty conquered and unified the dynasties (1). The Qin Dynasty eventually
fell to others which would hold power for only a few hundred years and lose it.
Dynasty ruling style led all the way through to 1912 when civil revolt led to
the forming of the Republic of China which lasted until 1949 (1). After civil
war modern day China, People’s Republic of China, was formed.
The
formation of the People’s Republic of China led to the installment of a
communist party led government. Under strong leadership, China has become the
second largest economy in the world in terms of GDP (1). Under strong
leadership, Chinese economic growth has been rapidly growing, when compared to
other major economies around the world, since 1978 (1). Prior to China’s modern
economic policies China went through some economic shock while forming into a
communist style country. This caused starvation and little economic growth
until they figured out how to successfully run a state controlled economic
system.
Modern
day china is a massive country with many subcultures. In China there are fourteen major ethnic
groups (2) and many other minor ethnic groups. This diversity causes there to
many languages throughout China but their national language is Standard Chinese
or Mandarin. Even though the country has no official religion the largest
religions are Daoism and Buddhism. The Chinese Education system is a lot like
the American system with twelve primary grades and secondary options available.
High School systems differ because the students only attend class twice a week
on the weekends and are normally working during the week.
Through
a mixture of economic strength and sheer size, China has come into the
spotlight a world super power. With this foreign power China has taken the opportunity
to create trade and create international influence. As a way to help strengthen
relationships with other countries China has a large foreign exchange program
which is nice because it allows firsthand experience through talking and
interviewing these international students.
Observations:
As brought up earlier, one
of the most striking things to me was that Xingping had decided to convert to Christianity.
She also talked about how it was normal for parents to allow their children
free choice of religious belief. This I feel is a major difference between the
two countries and should be noted. Also in the interview I felt that the youth
of China are culturally defining themselves and that they are more liberal then
the hardly conservative American youth.
Lessons Learned from
International students:
From
this interview I learned some of the difficulties and positives of being a
foreign exchange student. Something that Xingping felt was important was to
make friends in America and to really mingle with American students to really
start understand American culture. The only thing is that this is not easy because
there aren’t any really good ways to go about meeting and befriending people in
a foreign land. A positive theme brought up was the complete immersion in a
different culture and that you distance yourself from home forcing you into new
situation. This immersion is wonderful as a tool to understand the culture of
another country.
Work Cited: Cited references have been paraphrased
(1) "China." wikipedia.org. N.p., 22 2012.
Web. 23 Oct 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China>.
(2) "The
World Fact Book." China. CIA, 4 2012. Web. 23 Oct 2012.
<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html>.
Interview Transcription:
N: Nick
X: Xianping
N: Maybe I should test,
eh. Ok, um… I guess thanks for coming to the interview. Um... Yeah. I guess can
you tell me about yourself and where you’re from?
X: Hmm. My name is
Xiangping and I’m from China.
N: Where from China?
X: Actually, I’m from
very small city, it is in the middle of China but I think it it is a very
beautiful and quiet place for people to live and study.
N: Nice, I guess is
that gunna be, I know China is very large and It gots a lot of different, a lot
different areas just because of the size like tropical deserts and forests. Is
it, is it green or a dessert?
X: Could you report your question?
N: What is it like
there, is it really wet there and green or is nice in your home city?
X: My home city, I
think although my home city is very small but the people in my city is so
friendly and um. And I think that for my city we have a lot of people who
devoted to maybe, how do you say it? And I think that the food in my city is
very famous in my country and you can, if you visit my city you test a lot of
delicious food and you can meet very friendly people and you can. And also it
is very nice place to live because it is very quiet so you don’t need to bother
other people who can rest.
N: What’s the name of
the city again?
X: My name?
N: No the name of the
city.
X: Louli, L-O-U-L-I
N: Sounds nice, sounds
really nice. Um, why did you choose saint cloud, if it’s nice there. I mean
this place is meh.
X: Yeah, actually
before I came here, I had some friends who studied here before
N: O
X: And my uncle he lived in Minnesota in
Minneapolis. Yeah and I know Saint Cloud is a very small city and I like it
because I like the people here and I like the environment here. It is very
quiet so it is a good place for our study.
N: Nice, nice. Yeah
it’s nice here. I guess what’s your major and what do you plan on doing after
school?
X: Actually my major is
nursing. I know it will very challenging major but I like it because I think
that for my major for when I graduate from this school I can find a job easily
and I can also help a lot of people and I can help them to refuse their pain.
N: Nice, is that a two
year or just a four year program?
X: It a four year
program.
N: I must thinking of a
different thing. I guess do you want to tell me about your country and just can
you give me a brief description of China? It’s vague but…
X: Um, I think that for
the beliefs, I think maybe the belief in China is very different from the that
in America. Such as in America you will see a lot of people that are Christians
and they will go to church every Sunday and for me, I think I don’t have. I no
religion in China but when I came here I became a Christian and I went to
church with my friends and we pray for people who need, who have any needs and
we can be more tolerant when, I think we can be more tolerant we I became a Christian
so..
N: alright
X: but in China, it is
not popular for people who became Christian because maybe they will think that Jesus
is not a good person, Jesus doesn’t have any power to support you or to
encourage you or to help you.
N: That’s, that’s
pretty crazy, switching. Did you, were you religious before you?
X: I had no religion
before I came here.
N: That’s pretty crazy.
I never thought about people converting when coming over, that’s awesome.
X: Yeah.
N: What did you, when
you came to, or. Before coming to America, what did you do in your free time
and what were your hobbies?
X: Actually, for me I
like reading in the library and sometimes when I have readin, I think the
activities in China is very different from that in America. Such as we have a
lot of places to go such as KTV. We can see, we can sing songs with our friends
in KTV but maybe it is very hard to find KTV in America and sometimes we will
hang out with our friends. We will go shopping with our friends. Maybe we will
just find a place to sit together and talk together and study together
N: Nice, nice. Is that,
is that what most people are doing? In America we pretend that we have a lot of
things to but really we just sit around watching TV. Um, for young people in China,
is there, what is just a normal activity? Do they just study, what’s just a
Saturday night activity?
X: Actually, for the,
for the people in elementary school, middle school, maybe they can have their
weekend. But for the people who are in high school, they don’t have weekend
actually.
N: Really?
X: Yeah, we have to work;
we have to go to school on weekend. So we have little time for activities. And
I think that the education in America and China is very different because I
think for me when I was in high school I felt very stressful and I needed to
keep studying and studying all the time. Even on weekend. So, I think the major
activity for high school is just studying. When I went to college or
university, we can have a lot of free time so we can do what we like maybe some
students, they’ll enjoy sports, maybe they’ll play basketball or basketball
with their friends together and some people maybe they will join some club such
as music clubs or maybe with, they will do anything they enjoy.
N: Yeah, yeah. It’s
kinda, it’s really different that high school you have five, you just work five
days a week?
X: Yeah.
N: That’s quite a bit
different
X:
Yeah. We have a lot of homework to do every day and we need to get up at maybe
six am and we will finish our class at maybe ten pm. So…
N: That’s crazy, I didn’t
know about that.
X: Yeah. It’s
different.
N: I guess, sorry… We
just kind of covered a question. Um what, Education systems, like you said, I
guess, K through. Elementary School, Middle School are about the same? Is it
just five days a week compared to high school? Who goes to university in your?
X: You mean for the
life in university. Actually I went the one year university in China and I
think that the life in university is also different from the life in America.
We just have two or three classes every day and we have little homework to do
every day so we can have a lot of free time to do what we like to do and we
don’t need to be stressful because we just needed to pay attention to our final
exam but in America we needed to do, you needed to pay a lot of attention to
your homework and you needed to pay attention to the exam during your semester
but in China you just because our teacher, our professor just care how many
scores you get in your final exam. So maybe some students maybe don’t study or
will skip the classes during the semester, they just pay attention to maybe
when the, such as, maybe they’ll just have maybe one week or two weeks or two
weeks left before the final, they’ll study very hard and will go to the library
to review their textbook to review the exams and maybe some of them will get a
very higher score and for the. Maybe for our grade in America we get a A, B, C,
D we have a different classes for the for the grade. But in China we just have
one result, whether you pass you pass your exam. Such as if you get maybe
seventy, it’s okay, you can pass your test. But if you get fifty, you failed
for your exam, so you need to retake your exam.
N: That’s a lot
different.
X: Yeah. So, I think
that the study in America is so stressful because you need to study every day,
you need to pay attention to your homework every day, you need to do your
homework carefully everytime.
N: I’d probably would
leave it of for at least a month before, I’d probably fail. That’s great. Um,
you talked about coming to America and learning, adopting Christianity. Back
home you weren’t religious. Is that normal or is there a major religion in your
region.
X: Actually, Christian
is not a major religion in China. How do you say it? Sorry I need to (look this
up).
N: Yeah, Christianity
never really spread.
X: Yeah but it’s a
major religion in America.
N: Definitely.
X: How do you say it?
Buddhism?
N: Yeah, Buddhism.
X: Yeah Buddhism is the
major religion in China. Yeah and maybe some such as my grandparents and my
parents are Buddhism.
N: Buddhism?
X: Yeah
N: Is there a reason
your parents didn’t teach that to you or is not a religion that is passed down?
X: I think that if your
parents, family or maybe something will ask their children will be Buddhism
together but it is fine for family to have parents to think that if I want to
be a Christian that’s ok. They can accept it.
N: That’s awesome
X: Yeah
N: I, it’s just normal
here for the parents to, they will, here parents always teach them their
religion. They want to pass it on.
X: Yeah
N: That’s awesome that
it is free thought and I don’t know, that’s awesome. I guess, I really don’t
know a lot about Buddhism. What, what’s the church system. Is there churches
around or is it private, private prayer or?
X: Actually we don’t
have any church for Buddhism but for some people, how do you say it? Such as,
for my grandparents before I took my exam, maybe they will, sorry.
N: That’s cool. Is this
your first year here? Just real quick, is this your first year in America.
X: Yeah, first year.
N: Nice
X: Actually, it is the
second semester.
N: Your English is very
good.
X: Thank you. How do
you say it? Burn… sticks before I.
N: O, before an idol.
X: So, if I need to
take an exam and my grandparents will do this. Yeah. Burn before an Idol. This
will help her to pass her exam and.
N: Nice.
X: Yeah, it is very
different.
N: I guess it’s kind of
the same. It’s like one prays.
X: Maybe for this
question I can send you some information, I can check to make sure it is
correct for my answers.
N: Sure, I guess. I
have to study the question, it would be very helpful.
X: Yes, it is very
different.
N: That is different.
Um, yeah sure. Buddhism, nice. Um, is, when Christianity. Well you know America
was like founded by western civilizations , most western civilizations are
Christian so we celebrate all their holidays, Easter, Christmas, is there any
major religions, I mean any major holidays in your country that you guys
celebrate.
X: Actually, maybe we,
maybe now with the development of the society, Christmas day will be popular in
my country but our major, the most important festival is the spring festival.
It is the most important festival in China. And we, our family will stay
together and for some, our relatives work in another city, they will come back
home and stay with their family together and eat dinner together, stay together
and have a talk together. And because the spring festival, it will be at the
end of one year. So maybe it close to the Christmas day, so maybe the people
will talk to the and say they have in this year and the families they have in
this year and they will share their experience. And for the students, they will
have a long holiday for these festivals, no class, no homework. Maybe the
children will have. The people, their parents of their, relatives or their
maybe their grandparents will give them gifts during these holiday so the
children will be very happy with this holiday.
N: Yeah, yeah.
Christmas we give gifts.
X: Yeah, yeah I think
maybe the separation of Christian and spring festival, it is very similar. For
the family to sit together and sometimes we will visit our friends or relatives
during this holiday.
N: That’s awesome,
everyone comes home and?
X: Yeah, yeah.
N: What is exactly is
that to celebrate, is there any traditional reasons? New Year’s maybe?
Religious or?
X: I think that um, We
will regard as a new year begins for the spring festival because it is at the
end of one year, so it can means a new year will come so we will have a new
start. Yeah.
N: So just the mark of
the New Year?
X: Yeah.
N: Quick time check. Um,
you talked about your town is known for, for it’s food? Is there, what are,
what’s traditional food from?
X: I would like to know
if you’ve tasted Chinese food before. Chinese food is very spicy. If you go to
a Chinese restaurant, you will find the food. In Chinese restaurant, is so
different from that in America because American food is very easy to make and
is very convenient but if you want to cook some Chinese food, it takes a lot of
time for cooking. Yeah, but for me, I prefer Chinese food because I like spicy
food. So sometimes I can, I don’t go to Garvy or at the center to have dinner
or to have my lunch. I just go back home and cook with my friends together
because it is very convenient to buy, find some Chinese market here so we can
buy a lot of Chinese food and cook it by our self.
N: Nice.
X: Yeah.
N: Have you ever been
to an American Chinese restaurant?
X: Yeah, sure.
N: Is it just nothing
like that, is it? Or is it like that?
X: Actually, such as it
in Saint Cloud, it has Chinese restaurant, called Chinese Star. Chinese Star.
N: I’ve never.
X: Yeah, so I think it
is very good restaurant if you want to taste some Chinese food and it has a lot
of special Chinese food such as the fish and the tofu and the. A lot of food
you can taste in American restaurant and you taste in a Chinese restaurant.
N: Nice, nice. Sorry,
going back to. Going back to religion kind of, does religion tie in with the
whole religion process? How do people go about getting married in China?
X: You mean for the age
when people getting married in my country or?
N: Sure.
Like when do they get married? Yeah, just.
X: For this question, I
think it depends on people. Such for, I have some classmates in high school,
they didn’t attend college or university when they graduated from high school.
Some are getting married and maybe some they have their children.
N: Wow.
X: Yeah, so when I
heard that, I was very surprised when I know this news. But in general for the
students, for the people if they attend college or university maybe they will
be getting married after their graduation from college or some will continue
attend master to get their master degree. And I think that for the average age
for people who get married it is twenty five, twenty six. But, maybe I think it
is different in China, if you are under twenty, you can’t get married. You
can’t, it is illegal to get married. But when you are twenty or twenty one or
twenty two, you can get married you can get married legally.
N: Yeah, that’s
different.
X: Yeah but I know in
America, you can marry at maybe sixteen you can if you get permission from your
parents you can get married.
N: Yeah there is some
weird rule about that that I really don’t know. Yeah that’s kind of a weird
question to ask because just like in America there is such a, there’s no set
age. In marriage, is it religious like in America it’s usually tied in with the
church? It’s some spiritual or non-religious in China?
X: No, actually maybe
in the big cities they will have a lot of church in the big cities in China.
But if you go to a small city maybe it is very hard to find a church. People
didn’t go to church and yeah.
N: Ok, so I guess um.
Just kind out of curiosity, this is kind of a fun one. What’s considered
offensive in your country? Is there
anything you could say or do to really tell someone off? Like in America you
can, you can, you know, flip them the middle finger and that is saying to say
go screw yourself?
X: Can I see your
question?
N: Sure, it’s this one
right here. Like, is there anything you can do to… What shouldn’t, If I went to
China what shouldn’t I do because I’ll offend someone?
X: Oh, you mean if you
went to China, what should you do?
N: No, what shouldn’t I
do? What should I not do because um, what would people, what would make someone
mad that I could do? It’s kind of a question.
X: Actually for this
offensive, I think that for China if you, although you are foreign if you went
to China for the first time, maybe you will vary with all kinds of systems you
can’t do in China. Actually, I think that most of people in China are very
friendly and they can understand the different cultures between different countries.
So it is ok for you to do some stuff that I think that for some people they
don’t want to maybe, some people don’t want to share the bathroom with the
people they aren’t familiar with. And some people don’t want to live in the
same room with different people. If you go to the hotel, maybe you would need
to share a room with some people you don’t know each other before. And some
people maybe cannot accept it. But I think most of things; the people of China
can accept it. But maybe I think it is not good if you go to a foreign country
and you talk about some politic. Politic issues because maybe different people
will have different opinions about this so maybe they will bring some argument
and some maybe.
N: Yeah totally.
X: And I think except
for the politic issue, I think anything is okay if you want to talk.
N: Yeah, yeah. I guess
is there anything you would like to tell me about China that you can think
about off the top of your head?
X: Yeah, actually I
think in China I think, it is a very big country that has a large population
but such as I found very strange for me because facebook is very popular in
America but it is forbid in China. You can’t use facebook because maybe our
government will think we can spread a lot things on facebook so they just
control the facebook. But we have another way to talk and to share with our
friends. Such as QQ, is the function of QQ it is similar to facebook. We can
post our feelings, post our ideas, post our pictures and we can share our
pictures, our opinions, ideas with our friends. Then we can talk, we can talk
with our friends face to face. So I think the function is the same with
facebook. I think that in China, for me I think I like Chinese food and
different cities in China have different special food. Such as you go to
Beijing you will taste Beijing duck. Yeah Beijing duck and if you go to Hong,
how do you say it?
N: Hong Kong?
X: If you go to
Shanghai, will taste some very delicious noodles. In some cities, they are very
famous with their noodles and some cities are very famous with their rice.
Yeah. And maybe, I think most people know China, it has a very long history. I
think it is almost five thousand years, so it has a lot of ancient cities such
as Beijing, Shehai, Hongo, and Shanghai and Yongo. So you can visit a lot of
ancient cities in China and you will have different views when you have a
traveler in America. So, I think such as in America, maybe most people speak
English for their native people but in China we have different language in
different cities. Maybe mandarin Chinese will be a very popular language in China
but we will also have different dialect in different cities. Such as I attend
my college in my home town but for the people who lived in, how do you say it?
Although the cities is very close, but the language is very different and
people, I can’t understand what you are talking about for dialect. But if you
speak mandarin Chinese then most people can understand it.
N: Nice, nice. Is that,
what you are taught? Is mandarin Chinese taught throughout all the schools or
how did you learn? Do you know how to speak mandarin Chinese?
X: Yeah, I think most
of students, they can, they know how to speak mandarin Chinese. But for, maybe for our parents or our
grandparents, they don’t know. They just know the dialect, so it is a little
hard for them to have communication when they go to another city or are going
to big cities.
N: Nice, nice. China is
just so huge, like a lot of people, lot of cultures; it’s kind of hard to ask
these questions about specific things.
X: Yeah.
N: It’s gunna change.
Before we end the interview, yeah I’m all out of questions; it’s only fair that
do you have any questions for me?
X: Yeah, sure. Yeah,
actually I am very curious about America because I think it is so different
from China and at international students, I needed to live here for a very long
time, I need to study here for a very long time because I want to know more
about American culture because I want to make more American friends. I want to
make more foreign friends. Yeah so.
N: Um, Yeah. Thanks for
you know.
X: You’re welcome.
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