Interview 2

Interview 2

10/21/2012

Eng 191 section 28

Interviewer: Nick C-A

Interviewee: Hua, G

Country: China

Audio: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B__8FzSF3IZcYzlicDVMbkdOdlk

Preparations:

                Before interviewing, I set up my questions, interviewing objectives, and recording 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 Hua 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 Hua accepted.

Execution:

                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 to the interview and contacted Hua via text message so we could meet up and find a place to sit.

                This Interview I felt went well because even though me and Hua are from different countries we are both guys around the same age range with relatively similar interests. Hua is in his first year of college in the states and on his second year of college overall. He is from a town in China Called Louli which is the city of the first interviewee, Xianping. He decided on Saint Cloud because he knew someone who he had gone to high school with that went here and suggested it. He is studying fitness.

As I brought up earlier, me and Hua have some things in common that allowed us to talk in a friendly manner. This caused the interview to go smoothly but sometimes caused trouble when Hua wanted to converse instead of answering the questions presented. This being the second interview I’ve conducted, I feel that I’ve improved on my interviewing abilities allowing this interview to turn out better than the first.

                As the interview progressed, I caught onto a youth movement theme that impressed me. In the answers, Hua talks about his age group and how they have changed away from conservative rules and turned more modern. This impressed me because when I think of today’s China I think of strong censorship laws that may prevent cultural diffusion which isn’t the case. The way Hua answered made China sound just as adoptive of technology and progressive as the United States and any other western country.

                This being my second interview caused this interview to go more smoothly than the first. Unfortunately I still struggled at some parts of the interview that I feel I can improve for the final interview. The first thing I struggled with is that I stuttered through my questions because I wanted to present them in a certain context that I really hadn’t decided on before beginning my sentence. I could improve on this by just stopping very briefly and thinking before proceeding. Another thing I felt I didn’t do the best on was during the wind down phase of the interview when he begun to ask me questions. I felt he had trouble drawing together his thoughts and I tried to answer that. What I should have done is simply repeat the question and clarify before trying to answer the question to avoid any confusion.

Post-Production:            

The country China is located in eastern Asia. 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, I found that there is independent youth that is very progressive in china. This observation concurs with the previous interview with Xianping where she brought up a similar attitude. In Hua’s interview he talked about how China is becoming more like America which I misunderstood in the interview as literal but I think now that he was expressing that the Chinese youth were growing into a twenty first century life style. He also felt the same way about other East-Asian countries which he would have a better understanding of than me.

Work Cited: referred material has 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

H: Hua, G

N: What’s your name and where are you from?

H: My English name is Kevin and my Chinese name is Hua G, you can just call me Hua. I’m from China.

N: You have an English name? When did you adopt that?

H: Yeah, it’s Kevin because it’s easier for Americans to remember so I adopted it.

N: What’s your home city and where is it?

H: My city is Louli. It’s a small town near Shanghai.

N: What brought you to the states and St. Cloud?

H: My high school classmate went to St. Cloud State University and he suggested I come here.

N: What’s your major?

H: Fitness.

N: Are you planning on using that in the states or in China?

H: I plan on going back to my home country.

N: How many semesters have you been here?

H: Two semesters, you?

N: Third year, going onto my fifth semester. Tell me about yourself, what do you like to do around here?

H: I like playing basketball. Me and my friends will get together to play sports. Otherwise, I will just stay in the library. St. Cloud is a small city and I don’t really have a fun place to go.

N: Do you play any organized sports?

H: No. Do you?

N: No, I play video games and guitar.

H: I like video games too. I play 2k sports. What do you play?

N: World of warcraft, league of legends, company of heroes. Do you have an Xbox or Playstation?

H: No, I play on the computer.

N: Nice. Do you mind talking about your country? What is China, where is it, and what makes it special?

H: China has a large population. Chinese people are hard working. China has a growing economy. We have a lot of culture and that is special to us. From an education stand point, we focus a lot on high school where as university is not as important as in America. We do not have the recourses to support university because of fewer teachers.  

N: Did this influence your choice to become a foreign exchange student?

H: Yes, that is one reason. Also China has the best food in the world.

N: Nice. How does Chinese food in the states compare to authentic Chinese food?

H: Real Chinese food involves chop sticks, where here everything tastes less spicy and tastes sweeter. The restaurants here are Americanized. In China the food will be spicier.                                                                     

N: So a lot more flavor?

H: Yes. The most famous food in China is hot pot. Hot pot is boiling water with added sauce and food. It is delicious.

N: American food can be very bland. Back at home, what do young people do during their free time?

H: In China, young people like to go out to eat. We also like to go to a small house called KTV.

N: What is that?

H: It’s a place for young people to go to sing, like karaoke. It’s unfortunate that they do not have this in America. Some young people like to go to a bar to drink.

N: What is the legal age in your country?

H: There is no age limit.

N: So it will be family values that decide when to start drinking?

H: Yes. Smoking is the same.

N: Are you religious?

H: No. Most young students are non-religious because they want us to decide for ourselves. Make an educated decision. How about you?

N: No, I am non-religious as well.

H: Is that popular?

N: I would have to say no. Christianity is a large influence in America. I feel in America most people would say they are religiously affiliated but do not actively practice it. In China is there a major religion in china?

H: Buddhism.

N: Were your parents Buddhist?

H: No, only old people practice. My grandparents are. Some people are monks that will stay in churches. Monks are dedicated to the church and will not marry nor eat meat. A lot of people believe in the religion too but do not go to church.

N: What is the biggest holiday in China?

H: The biggest holiday is the spring festival and the moon light festival.

N: When are those?

H: The spring festival is always in February and the moon light festival this year is in the last month.

N: They change?

H: Yes, the moon light festival changes every year because of a different calendar. The calendar is for farmers. It’s very old. It’s hard to explain. Only that calendar changes.

N: Is it tied to harvest?

H: It’s hard to explain. Every year we have a festival to help the farmer get their food.

N: What is the spring festival about?

H: It is to celebrate spring coming.

N: Do you celebrate with your family?

H: Yes, we come together and watch TV and gifts are exchanged. We will leave to go visit our brothers and sisters. For the food we cook dumplings.

N: When you get married, is it through the church like here in America?

H: Now it is a more modern style. Some will go to church to celebrate traditionally. Some will go to celebrate by going to the wife’s house and bring them money for the wife’s parents. They will drink tea together. This is very traditional. Now a day, people will not go to a church but will go to a hotel to celebrate and get some to come to bless their marriage. There will be a celebration held there too. The religious person will speak some words to bless the marriage. This is like in the states because we are influenced by western culture.

N: What do people find offensive in China?

H: I don’t know what you mean.

N: Here in America, you could give someone the middle finger.

H: Oh yeah. Like in America, you cannot touch a man’s shoulder.

N: Yes, there is a Chinese exchange student in my English class that did that.

H: We always do that to show our friendship. I touched an American’s shoulder, he was angry. In China you don’t need to think much. Young Chinese people are more and friendlier so you won’t have to worry. Some Muslims are offended when you eat pork because of religion. You will not have a problem getting along with people except for the language barrier. Maybe you will have trouble adapting to our food. People will follow you though because you are American.

N: There seems to be a youth readjustment to culture. Do you feel that your generation is redefining Chinese culture?

H: I think that in all countries young people will change. Even in very traditional countries like Saudi Arabia, Japan, Korea, and India the young people are becoming more and more like America.

N: Well America is doing the same thing.

H: Their dress and habit are becoming more like it.

N: I feel that it is so simple that it isn’t becoming like America.

H: No, like if you go to North Korea. We accept more and more from America.

N: I’m sure we can learn a lot from Chinese culture as well. Is there anything you would like to say about China that we have not covered?

H: Yeah. When I first came here, I noticed that people like to show their regards and show their enthusiasm. They like to say, “What’s up?” and shake hands. In China this is really weird. We don’t say hello to strangers but this does happen in America.

N: When you meet a stranger what do you do?

H: We don’t say anything. It is hard to meet new friends in China.

N: Now that I have asked you a bunch of questions, do you have any questions for me?

H: Before University, how often will people get into a relationship?

N: Younger kids now get into relationships more because of facebook. When I was going to high school, I would guess that forty percent of students were in a relationship. Before that in middle school about twenty percent, even though these relationships were very meaningless.

H: What kind of qualities do American girls look for in American boys?

N: I’m not really the right person to ask about this. That’s kind of a huge sociological question, so I don’t know sorry.

H: What’s your major?

N: Computer Science.

H: What class are you taking?

N: 201.

H: I’m taking 169 and we use HTML. Could maybe help me sometime?

N: Yeah sure I guess. There’s also a nice website you can go to called w3schools.com which is very helpful.