On Memory, Or the Importance of Fieldnotes

This post is a personal account of how memory, as discussed in the above video, effected my recollections of fieldwork once I came home.

The importance of taking detailed notes while in the field and doing interviews was stressed in every methods and research class I took throughout my college tenure. I never doubted my teachers were right, but as with many lessons, knowing something intellectually and understanding it experientially are two very different levels of knowledge. On an intellectual level I knew what these professors were saying was correct, but it wasn't until recently that I experienced the reality of it.

Why is Coming Home Always Weird?

I am 6 days into my 2nd homecoming – back to Wisconsin after 2 years in the field. Unlike the first time I returned from Taiwan, I don’t think I am suffering from culture shock … but that isn't to say it has been easy. I feel somehow – off. It’s not jet lag  though I have been trying to blame jet lag for my “comatose” state, as my family has taken to describing me.

I am being called comatose for my lack of responsiveness. I’m not actually sure what they expect of me. This is weird. These are people I’ve known my whole life – or their whole lives as the case may be – and yet I am not sure how to react to news: a new apartment, a redecorated room … that’s nice, I said.

I also don’t know how to talk about what I've been doing, and this goes beyond family. I stick with the superficial experiences mostly, like strange foods, but Asian food just isn't fascinating to me anymore. I’ve mentioned to a couple of people about the natural hot springs I went to shortly before I left Taiwan – but this was apparently not interesting to anyone else.

Another fascinating experience I had was being invited into a hostess club. Maybe I should write about that one here? I just don’t know how to explain it or how people will react. In fact at this point I don’t even know how appropriate it would be to bring up. Boundaries vary cross culturally and I find myself suddenly unsure of where some of those lie.  I spent some time socializing with a few professors in Taiwan, but then felt awkward my first day back to campus in Milwaukee.

It’s not that I ever fit in 100% here, but I could at least play along once upon a time. Just before I left Taiwan a good friend of mine (Taiwanese) said that I needed to come back because I belonged there. Another friend (American) sent a Facebook message telling me I had gone native. I never felt “Taiwanese,” yet I wonder, could they be right?  

Fieldwork Challenges of the 21st Century: Why I Can’t Keep my Blog Up-to-Date

In short – I often don’t know what to write.  This is not a writer’s block, not exactly.  What I have is an ethical dilemma of content. The importance of anonymity to protect research subjects has been drilled into my brain over many years of college and graduate school. This makes it difficult for me to blog about my experiences in the field while I am in the field. My fear is that it would be too easy for anyone in Taipei to figure out the identity of anyone I mention (and I happen to know that there are people in Taipei who have looked at this site).

This is something that was never covered in any of my classes unfortunately. When the classics were written there were no blogs. Malinowski did not have to worry about keeping his informants’ identities safe.

So, why then did I start a blog?

Silver Linings

As disappointing as it may have been in the moment, not getting research funding just may be the best thing that has happened to me so far. I came to Taiwan while still waiting to hear about my funding applications and began Mandarin classes and interviews.  It was a risk, I knew, but I had nothing to do in WI but forget more Chinese.

The Oddities of Anthropoloogy

 

Throughout my career as a graduate student I have been constantly told of the importance of networking.  It is not always phrased as networking, but the subtext is the same.  Attend conferences, connect with people from other departments or schools, present at conferences, go to departmental social gatherings, and do not forget to publish.

As I tend to be shy, this can be overwhelming, but that is for a different post a different day.

In order to finish my PhD I will be heading to Taiwan to do field research.  The last time I was in Taiwan I stayed for 9 months for the purpose of studying Chinese and doing preliminary research.  Coming home was in many ways harder than going there (Coming Home or Leaving Home?). When I returned to school I found my shared office half populated by people I did not know; the login for the computer had changed, some of the requirements for the job had changed, and for the first time since I began grad school, I was not living on campus.  I had returned home to feel like a foreigner all over again, and this made networking hard as I had to readjust to new circumstances all over again. (This was my third major life change in a rather short time period, so at this point it is possible that I have simply been “out of it” continuously for the last year.)

I have been back for 1 semester, but I have not, in all that time, gotten myself anywhere.  The entire semester was filled with bureaucratic paperwork all in the quest to return to Taiwan to finish my studies.  It was mostly a bore and a frustration.  Only my job offered me any sort of intellectual stimulation.  (I thank-whatever-god-you-believe-in for my job.)  I have not even had the chance to reconnect with my old WoW guild (I<3TrN) despite my dearest desire to do so.  It’s been 2 years….I wonder if I can go back?

So here I am preparing to leave in 17 days.  I will essentially disappear off the face of the earth for the next 18 months.  The time difference will make connecting with my old guild unrealistic, the distance will make conference participation unobtainable, and I can only guess at what changes my department will go through during my absence.  To get ahead I need to network, but to be an anthropologist I have to disappear. By the time I return home I will have been out of the loop for a total of 3 years. I fear I will just have to start all over again.     

Preparing for Fieldwork

A wise man told me recently that these last few weeks will be the hardest.  I am leaving for Taipei in 19 days to do my dissertation research.  This will be my 2nd time living in Taipei and somehow I find the opening statement strangely true.

My language ability is stronger, I know where I will be staying, and I actually have friends living in Taipei; yet I am more nervous about returning than I ever was going in the first place.  Not that it is all just nerves.  Every time I step out into the whirlwind of snow outside I cannot wait to get back to Taipei.  It was 75F there today.

I left a new boyfriend back there too.  We have been apart from each other longer than we were together. He says we’ll have to start over from scratch if we want to date when I return.  I think he is right.  A lack of shared experience can really pull people apart. I do not think my chosen career path is particularly conducive to long term relationships.  The few colleagues I have spoken with on the matter all agreed.  Not that any of us are attempting a monastic lifestyle or anything, just recognizing reality for what it is.

It takes a special kind of person to live with a wanderer.

To add icing to the cake, I still don’t have my visa, funding, or IRB approval yet.  I think it might technically be more work to get to the field than it is to actually do the fieldwork.

Funding Justifications

This is what I have been up to lately …

Examining games as an aspect of culture may still be under-developed, but assumptions about digital games abound within public and academic discourses. Many people look at digital games as only a thing which is addictive and damaging without taking the time to look beyond the rare sensational cases that happen to make the evening news. This should not be surprising. Once upon a time the same dystopian fears were expressed about radio, television, and the personal computer. New technology consistently frightens people even as it is accepted by others. This is not, however, an inconsequential historical cycle. These fears lead to uninformed laws and regulations being passed, the blocking of beneficial progress, and the deepening of the class gap (due in large part to unequal access to technologically related opportunities). This is not to suggest that all technology is “good” and that regulation should be done away with completely. Technology is neutral; it is how technology is used that begs moral questions. Therefore, it is imperative that social sciences, such as anthropology, take the time to look at technology, in all of its forms, so that these social practices can be understood and informed decisions can be made.

Sometimes It Is Good to Trip and Fall

I went out to dinner with a friend the other day and he said the strangest thing.  We were in the middle of a conversation when I got distracted by something.  After the distraction passed, my friend said, "Ok, to get back to the anthropology, so in Team Fortress 2..."

Now, I am in Taiwan to study video games, so perhaps it should not seem odd to me that my friend would refer to our discussion of video games as anthropology, but it did.  It struck me because I had not been thinking of terms of research all night. 

My friend had called me up and asked if I wanted to get dinner.  I had been studying all day for prelims and so I welcomed the break.  I put my studying aside and immediately turned my attention away from anthropology and onto food…so much so in fact that it didn’t even immediately register when our conversation turned to Team Fortress 2.  Why would it? We talk about video games all the time.  It was normal.

I knew before I came to Taiwan that fieldwork was not confined to formal interviews or that it ever took place in contrived settings.  I learned from my previous research that the best information is that which I trip over when I am not looking for it.  Even so, here I am, still being surprised when I trip again. 

So much for that break.

Trying to Walk a Tightrope Toddling like a 2 Year Old ...

This is what doing fieldwork is like.

For every social situation there are cultural norms only some of which I know and even fewer that I understand.  There is body language that I cannot read; that I unfortunately do not realize I cannot read until after I misread it. 

When in doubt I tend to fall back on the politest action my American brain can conjure...but oh have I learned how bad that can be. Yet what else can I do?

Yesterday, a friend gave me some good advise. "Learn your place," he said, "This is a patriarchal society. If you learn your place within this system and act accordingly you will have more luck."

"I know this before"

I have read so much on patriarchy that it seems silly to me that I should have so many problems... and yet, I was totally unprepared for life in this type of social system. Even considering what I have read, where exactly does an unmarried 20-something year old woman fit in? Then add in that I smoke openly (which only men do - though women here do in fact smoke) and I openly play video games (another dirty little secret for many people).  

I do not want to give the wrong impression.  No one here is mean to me.  Sometimes people frustrate me, but I get the distinct impression that I frustrate others just as often. Living in Asia is like learning to walk all over again.  Even my "common sense" works against me here. Sometimes I am grateful that I look foreign because I know that lowers people’s expectations of me, but I don’t want it to be like that forever. 

How Long Is Research Supposed to Take Anyway?

After 4 months of living in Taipei I have finally started to make some progress. My ability to speak Chinese, while still not perfect, is noticeably improving. I can now accomplish daily tasks without speaking any English, and some of my American friends have even started to ask me for help when they need a little translation.

Academically, the people I have met over the past few months have begun to feel more comfortable around me I think. A couple of them have introduced me to gamer friends of theirs and one even "came out" to me as a gamer. While gamer shame is still an obstacle for me in meeting new people, my recent progress has made me much more hopeful.

I have also had the pleasure of being invited out to play Left4Dead at an Internet Cafe a couple of times now. I had a lot of fun and I met some interesting people, but the experience also reminded of where I have been lacking recently. I am a games researcher, and yet over the past 4 months I have hardly played any games at all. It is not that I have stop enjoying video games; it is, I believe, due to the nature of adjusting to a new culture and language, and now that I have become much more comfortable in Taipei I anticipate many more trips to go kill zombies.