“Come see me now,” a man at the Kunming Academy of Education Science abruptly told me over the phone.
I was shocked. I had only the day before come into contact this man by accident over the phone from a number given to me by a professor. But now he wanted me to drop everything at that moment and meet with him. At this point I didn’t even know his name. Regardless, thinking he could be a valuable contact for my research, I rushed out of my apartment.
After trying, in vain, to get a taxi near my apartment, I settled for a 20-minute public bus ride to a stop near the man’s office at the Kunming Academy of Education. After arriving, I found myself wandering through an alley to get to the building entrance and hustling up six flights of stairs to get to his office.
Stepping out of his office as I arrived, Mr. Yang, an older individual which appeared to be in his late 50s early 60s, greeted me with a startled look. He later admitted that when we talked on the phone he thought I was Chinese. A conversation drenched in condescension ensued. He kept repeating phrases like “Your Chinese is so good!” and “Do you understand what I’m saying?” At one point, when I asked him to introduce the ELT policy situation in Kunming, he pulled out a tissue-thin piece of paper and explained in elementary bullet points for me in Mandarin: “well middle school students study English from grade 7 to grade 9 for the high school entrance exam” and “high school students study English from grade 10 to grade 12 for the college entrance exam.” I interrupted to ask him more directly, about problems implementing ELT policy in Kunming which he subsequently wrote out three simple points related to this matter: “a lot of content in the English textbook and not a lot of time to learn it,” “ the English textbook material is demanding, creating difficulties for the students,” and “Teachers need more training.” By the end of the interview, I hadn’t really learned much new, and Mr. Yang wasn’t very helpful in providing any other contacts. But it was probably one of the strangest turn of events to meet a contact for my research so far. It also showed me how research leads here can pop up at the most unexpected times.
In my first three months of fieldwork research in Kunming, it’s been a “learn as you go along” experience. I’ve been learning to use Mandarin in a research fieldwork capacity, who I can talk to to get help with finding contacts and how to better focus the direction of my work. Since my advisor is not a specialist in my field, a lot of this work is done by myself. Though I was initially frustrated with the slow progress with my research, things are starting to fall into place. Below are some of my thoughts about areas of doing research so far in my first three months.
Communication and Miscommunication in Mandarin
Coming from an intensive language program in Harbin, I had significantly sharpened my Mandarin language skills. But using Mandarin in the classroom and in the field, are very different experiences. In the classroom, you can afford to make mistakes, misinterpret and have miscommunications but in the field you have to be much more careful and precise. You want to get certain information and help from individuals so you have to know how to ask the right question. But it’s not always easy to directly translate my questions from English into Mandarin and often requires the help of a native speaker. One good example of this was when I was writing interview questions I wanted to ask administrators at high schools with an international track, I wanted to ask about how they got teaching staff, equipment and resources in the classroom which I directly translated into Chinese. Talking to my tutor about my questions, she told me a better way to translate those with words as yingjian硬件 (for classroom equipment) and ruanjian 软件(for things like teaching staff and teaching material) that literally mean “hardware” and “software.” Learning to express myself in a culturally understandable way to get the information I need has been something I’ve had to figure out.
The issue of communicating more clearly is also important for my interaction with my advisor. She is a very sweet woman who helps me in a number ways in support of my research. But I think there is also sometimes confusion between us when we meet. We talk mostly in Mandarin (which I prefer as I want to improve my use of the language in a more professional setting) though she sometimes switches to English at certain points (which she speaks quite clearly- she got her PhD in the US).
A good example of our miscommunication was a recent discussion with her about beginning my interviews in schools. I asked her if I could begin conducting interviews the week before I leave for my conference (implying, in my mind, that I would like her help getting them set up this week) and she responded “yea, since you are doing semi-structured interviews, if you have any further questions, you could ask them more later” (which to me did not seem like she understood that I needed her assistance to set up the interviews). I then said I would like to get into certain high schools for interviews (trying to indirectly solicit her help) but she still didn’t seem to understand asking me “well do you know anyone there?” So I finally had to ask her directly if she could help me set up an interview with someone in one of the high schools I was interested in. This kind of miscommunication may be rooted in cultural misunderstanding as much as linguistic difficulties. Regardless, it’s a learning process.
Conducting Interviews
This is a core component of my research but progress in this area has been slow. So far I have had a chance to talk to two professors, an individual in the Kunming Academy of Education Science and the head of a private English language training school. Except for the individual at the Kunming Academy of Education Science, all the people I have talked to have been contacts I got through my advisor. What I learned from them hasn’t really contributed much to my understanding of my research but the practice of talking to them in Mandarin was helpful in its own right.
The prized interviews, with high school administrators, teachers and students as well as with officials in the Yunnan and Kunming education bureaus, in my research have not come about yet. This largely depends on expanding my social network here and meeting the right people who can put me in touch with such individuals. This is a slow process but I do have some promising leads.
Document analysis
Collecting documents related to my topic has been, so far, the most fruitful part of my research. They mostly consist of government documents, speeches and news articles I’ve been able to find on the internet through Chinese websites. But reading through them and analyzing them can be a very slow, tiring process. I’ve become increasingly adept at reading and skimming through articles in Mandarin especially after my time in CET but it still takes a significant amount of concentration and effort. Also, the government documents and speeches can be especially repetitive to read as they often re-use the same talking points and slogans throughout them. I can mostly understand the documents I’ve found but when I try to translate portions of them, I’ve found it difficult to translate into sensible English. It makes me understand more about why Chinglish is such a common phenomenon. The difference in language structure and word choice between English and Mandarin can make direct translation not feasible.
I was shocked. I had only the day before come into contact this man by accident over the phone from a number given to me by a professor. But now he wanted me to drop everything at that moment and meet with him. At this point I didn’t even know his name. Regardless, thinking he could be a valuable contact for my research, I rushed out of my apartment.
After trying, in vain, to get a taxi near my apartment, I settled for a 20-minute public bus ride to a stop near the man’s office at the Kunming Academy of Education. After arriving, I found myself wandering through an alley to get to the building entrance and hustling up six flights of stairs to get to his office.
Stepping out of his office as I arrived, Mr. Yang, an older individual which appeared to be in his late 50s early 60s, greeted me with a startled look. He later admitted that when we talked on the phone he thought I was Chinese. A conversation drenched in condescension ensued. He kept repeating phrases like “Your Chinese is so good!” and “Do you understand what I’m saying?” At one point, when I asked him to introduce the ELT policy situation in Kunming, he pulled out a tissue-thin piece of paper and explained in elementary bullet points for me in Mandarin: “well middle school students study English from grade 7 to grade 9 for the high school entrance exam” and “high school students study English from grade 10 to grade 12 for the college entrance exam.” I interrupted to ask him more directly, about problems implementing ELT policy in Kunming which he subsequently wrote out three simple points related to this matter: “a lot of content in the English textbook and not a lot of time to learn it,” “ the English textbook material is demanding, creating difficulties for the students,” and “Teachers need more training.” By the end of the interview, I hadn’t really learned much new, and Mr. Yang wasn’t very helpful in providing any other contacts. But it was probably one of the strangest turn of events to meet a contact for my research so far. It also showed me how research leads here can pop up at the most unexpected times.
In my first three months of fieldwork research in Kunming, it’s been a “learn as you go along” experience. I’ve been learning to use Mandarin in a research fieldwork capacity, who I can talk to to get help with finding contacts and how to better focus the direction of my work. Since my advisor is not a specialist in my field, a lot of this work is done by myself. Though I was initially frustrated with the slow progress with my research, things are starting to fall into place. Below are some of my thoughts about areas of doing research so far in my first three months.
Communication and Miscommunication in Mandarin
Coming from an intensive language program in Harbin, I had significantly sharpened my Mandarin language skills. But using Mandarin in the classroom and in the field, are very different experiences. In the classroom, you can afford to make mistakes, misinterpret and have miscommunications but in the field you have to be much more careful and precise. You want to get certain information and help from individuals so you have to know how to ask the right question. But it’s not always easy to directly translate my questions from English into Mandarin and often requires the help of a native speaker. One good example of this was when I was writing interview questions I wanted to ask administrators at high schools with an international track, I wanted to ask about how they got teaching staff, equipment and resources in the classroom which I directly translated into Chinese. Talking to my tutor about my questions, she told me a better way to translate those with words as yingjian硬件 (for classroom equipment) and ruanjian 软件(for things like teaching staff and teaching material) that literally mean “hardware” and “software.” Learning to express myself in a culturally understandable way to get the information I need has been something I’ve had to figure out.
The issue of communicating more clearly is also important for my interaction with my advisor. She is a very sweet woman who helps me in a number ways in support of my research. But I think there is also sometimes confusion between us when we meet. We talk mostly in Mandarin (which I prefer as I want to improve my use of the language in a more professional setting) though she sometimes switches to English at certain points (which she speaks quite clearly- she got her PhD in the US).
A good example of our miscommunication was a recent discussion with her about beginning my interviews in schools. I asked her if I could begin conducting interviews the week before I leave for my conference (implying, in my mind, that I would like her help getting them set up this week) and she responded “yea, since you are doing semi-structured interviews, if you have any further questions, you could ask them more later” (which to me did not seem like she understood that I needed her assistance to set up the interviews). I then said I would like to get into certain high schools for interviews (trying to indirectly solicit her help) but she still didn’t seem to understand asking me “well do you know anyone there?” So I finally had to ask her directly if she could help me set up an interview with someone in one of the high schools I was interested in. This kind of miscommunication may be rooted in cultural misunderstanding as much as linguistic difficulties. Regardless, it’s a learning process.
Conducting Interviews
This is a core component of my research but progress in this area has been slow. So far I have had a chance to talk to two professors, an individual in the Kunming Academy of Education Science and the head of a private English language training school. Except for the individual at the Kunming Academy of Education Science, all the people I have talked to have been contacts I got through my advisor. What I learned from them hasn’t really contributed much to my understanding of my research but the practice of talking to them in Mandarin was helpful in its own right.
The prized interviews, with high school administrators, teachers and students as well as with officials in the Yunnan and Kunming education bureaus, in my research have not come about yet. This largely depends on expanding my social network here and meeting the right people who can put me in touch with such individuals. This is a slow process but I do have some promising leads.
Document analysis
Collecting documents related to my topic has been, so far, the most fruitful part of my research. They mostly consist of government documents, speeches and news articles I’ve been able to find on the internet through Chinese websites. But reading through them and analyzing them can be a very slow, tiring process. I’ve become increasingly adept at reading and skimming through articles in Mandarin especially after my time in CET but it still takes a significant amount of concentration and effort. Also, the government documents and speeches can be especially repetitive to read as they often re-use the same talking points and slogans throughout them. I can mostly understand the documents I’ve found but when I try to translate portions of them, I’ve found it difficult to translate into sensible English. It makes me understand more about why Chinglish is such a common phenomenon. The difference in language structure and word choice between English and Mandarin can make direct translation not feasible.