Interview 1

Kevin Harty
Hao Tseng
China
English 191
October 26, 2009


Preparations

To prepare for the interview I made a list of ten open ended questions to ask the interviewee. With these questions I wish to gather as much information as I can about this persons country and culture. Along with the questions, I also constructed a set of objectives to follow during my interview. I found this to be much more difficult than making my list of questions. I used the help of my classmates objectives posted on their blogs to strengthen my own set of objectives. After this I began to look for an interviewee. This was fairly easy to do, I knew a couple international students from class, I just asked one of them if they would be willing to do an interview. He was happy to do an interview with me. We planned to meet on Monday after break in the library.

Interview

We met Monday October 26 in the library at seven. We met on the second floor at one of the tables. The environment of the library was quiet and would work well for a conversation for two people. The initial interview went well, I asked him if it was ok to record the interview and he said it would be fine. I started the recorder and begun the interview with a couple questions about his country and his background. Everything was going fine until his phone rang and he answered I couldn’t understand what he was saying he was speaking in Chinese and after he was finished talking on the phone, he told me that he had to go and he was sorry and said maybe we can try again tomorrow. So my interviewee was gone and I had recorded an interview that was 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Not a very successful interview. I am hoping on my next two interviews lasting a little longer. This is why I did not provide a transcript of the interview because I am counting on this to be the one that I won’t have graded.

Biography

Hao Tseng is the name of my first interviewee. I did not learn much about my interviewee because of their having to leave early, but what I did learn was that he is from China and that he has been in the u.s. for about a year. He also told me that he has no family here with him.

Interview Process

There wasn’t much of a process to my interview. There was really only a greeting and a couple quick questions.

Country and Culture

China stood as a leading civilization compared to the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was going through major problems, such as war and famine. After World War II, the Communists established a socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight.
Geography- Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea. Is the fourth largest country in the world. The difference in climate between parts of this country can be extreme, for example in the south it is tropical and in the north it is sub-arctic. The terrain in the country of China is made up of mostly mountains.
People of China- China has the largest population in the world with more than 1.3 billion residents. China also has a very diverse ethnic backgrounds such as Han Chinese, Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uyghur, Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Tibetan, Buyi, Dong, Yao, Korean. China also has four different religions that it people call their own and they are Daoist, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim. China's people also speak nine different languages they are Mandarin, Putonghua, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Minbei, Minnan, Xiang, Gan, Hakka.

Works Cited

CIA. "The World Fact." Central Intelligence Agency. September 30, 2009. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html (accessed October 20, 2009).