Intercultural Design - Project 2

1.2.21 - 10.2.21  (Week 5 - Week 6 )

Sajiya Mir (0340836)

Intercultural Design

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Project 2: Data Collection

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Instructions

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Data Collection

Week 5: 

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

This week was all about data collections, so we didn't have any lecture or tutorial class but we did get short consultation classes with the lecturer assigned to us.

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For our data collection, I started to email a few bloggers to ask for an interview. Two people I focused on were Hanfugirl, who had a Facebook page and a blog about hanfu. We got a lot of information from this page, so we wanted to interview her. Another person was a Tumblr blogger who also talked about hanfu and its motifs. 

While we waited to hear back from the two bloggers, we started to come up with a few questions we could ask:

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

• Our objectives of learning the Hanfu would be to produce an outcome where the Hanfu is revived to its original meanings without the emergence of political views.  

• To begin, we would like to ask; How were you introduced to Hanfu? What is it that you are interested in whenever it comes to the Hanfu?

• Are you aware of the political views of the Hanfu? 

• We are living in a modern era where most aesthetics are turned into trends. Do you know about the modern Hanfu and how it is different from the traditional Hanfu?

• Does it still carry the same symbolism as the traditional Hanfu? Has the representation of the Hanfu changed in the media?

• In your opinion, what patterns and colors are mostly used in the Hanfu? And why?

Once we were happy with the questions, we send them to Mr. Asrizal first to make sure they were appropriate to ask. 

Mr. Asrizal suggested we try to improve the question so that they do not lead the interviewee in any way, for example, he suggested we can ask 'Can you describe what topics you cover in your blog and Facebook page?' or ask 'Are you aware of political views of hanfu?' 

NEW INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. First, we would like to ask more about you and what you do with your hanfu girl blog and Facebook page? 

2. How were you introduced to Hanfu, and what is it about hanfu that appealed to you?

3. In your opinion, what patterns (embroidery)  and colors are mostly used in the Hanfu? And why?

4. Are you aware of the political views of the Hanfu? If so, then what role do you think politics has on the revival of hanfu?

5. Do you know about the modern Hanfu and how it is different from the traditional Hanfu?

6. What does hanfu represent to the newer generation, and is this different from the older generation?

7. Now there being hanfu made for cats and gym wear, do you believe the modern hanfu still carries the same symbolism as the traditional Hanfu, or has it changed?

8. What is it about hanfu you would like others to know?

9. Through our research, we have found that the political view dominates the revival of hanfu. Hence, our goal as a group is to design an final outcome that can restore the hanfu to its original symbolism without invoking any political narrative. As such, what would you like us to represent in our design, is there anything you would expect to see?

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Friday, February 5, 2021

Today our group started to brainstorm—a few ideas other than the interview to collect data to answer and support our research questions. Also, to help us decide on our final outcome. A few of the ideas we came up with were:

• Google survey
• Questionnaire
• Instagram polls
• Museum walkthrough for image collections

We weren't sure if we would have time to complete all these, so to start,  we decided to do a google survey. Two of our teammates started making the google survey while the rest tried to find museums with hanfu artifacts. 

We heard back from Ms.Gong Pan Pan agreeing to the interview. Hence, we tried doing a bit of research on her, and we saw that she also designs facemask and bags that incorporate design, so we tried to add design questions into our survey and send it to her so she could prepare:

Fig.1.0 Interview questions

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Sunday, February 7, 2021

We completed making the google survey and decide to post it on Instagram to collect some feedback. I made an Instagram story that all of the team members could post to ask people to participate and posted the link in our bio: 

Fig.1.1 Google survey

https://forms.gle/6zLv86nsT6q5zHBn9 

Fig.1.2 Instagram story

Next, we had an interview with Ms. Gong Pan Pan, scheduled for 8:30 pm. We conducted the interview on zoom with her consent recorded the video.

Fig.1.3 Ms. Gong pan pan Interview

Once we were done with the Interview, Jocelin transcribed the video to use in our presentation slide. 

Fig.1.4 Interview Transcript (Gong Pan Pan) 

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Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Even though we had completed a couple of data collection methods, I felt that our research was still lacking, especially when it came to an understanding of how to make the products and how we could incorporate our subcultures into our work. From the google surveys, we found out that most people liked the idea of masks and bags as our final outcome, so I wanted to interview designers who work with these products. I contacted my cousin and asked her if she knew a few designers who make these products. She got me introduced to Ms. Anisha and Mr. Shanawaz. After talking to them, they agreed to do an interview with us, so we scheduled an interview with Ms. Anisha at 3:00pm and another one with Mr. Shanaswaz at 8:30pm. 

Fig.1.5 Interview with Ms. Anisha

Fig.1.6 Interview with Mr. Shanawaz

After we finished the interview, we transcribed both videos and added the answers to our presentation slide. 

Fig.1.7 Interview Transcription (Ms.Anisha)

Fig.1.8 Interview Transcription (Mr. Shanawaz)

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Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Today was the submission of Project 2, so we compiled all the data that we collected into presentation slides and recorded the presentation video on zoom. 

Fig.1.9 Final Presentation

Fig.2.0 Final Video Presentation

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Feedback

[Week 5]: The questions should be neutral and should not lead the interviewee to give the answer you are looking for.  

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Reflection

Experience: This was a very exhausting project; we had so much to do and so little time. I wish we had more time for this project because interviewing, transcribing, survey data collection, and presentation slides take a lot of time. However, I am very happy with our group as we all put our 100% and we were able to come up with a lot of data.

Observations: I think the responses we received for the color scheme and the patterns were a little influence by the existing stereotypes people already had about the Chinese culture. For example, when we asked what patterns were the most eye-catching to the participants, most of them picked the dragon instead of the flower patterns. While with the colors, red was the most voted color. 

Findings: Through our interviews, we learned about the four gentlemen, which refers to four plants: the plum blossom, the orchid, the bamboo, and the chrysanthemum. These plants are quite prominent to the Chinese culture and have been seen in paintings and embroideries. When we were doing our research, we never came across any information regarding the four gentlemen. We got more the stereotypical Chinese designs such as the dragon and Pheonix. This goes to show that the data collection project is important in learning more about the culture in ways that cannot be achieved through research on google.