My Second interview
with Thant Z.
Interview preparation
For my second interview I approached a student that I met in ECC. His
name is Thant. His major is computer science. This is his Junior year. He is
from Burma(Myanmar). I told him about this interview and requested to be one
of my interviewee. We decided
to meet in the coffee shop later that day. I gave him more information about what this
interview is about. Before we started out with the interview, I let him know that
I will be recording the interview and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. I did use the
voice memo app for this interview too.
Interview Report
Thant is from Myanmar which is
located in South East Asia. Looking at his appearance, anyone can tell that he
is an Asian. However, at first I thought that he should be somewhere from Japan
or China. As he mentioned in the interview, there are many students from Burma
here in SCSU. In fact he is the first one that i met . I could actually relate
to him when he said how deep faith he has in his religion. I was overjoyed when
he said that he was a Buddhist because 'Lord Buddha' , the founder of Buddhism
was born in my country, Nepal. Even after the interview was done, we stayed
there for a bit and talked about Buddhism. He mentioned that he wants to come
to Nepal and visit 'Lumbini ', the birth place of Lord Buddha.
The thing that surprised me in
this interview was that he didn't find much difference in the social life of
people in his country and here in the US. I was pretty sure that I would hear at least one difference in the social
life of people. From this interview I realized
that though located in the same continent, there are differences in the social life of people living in different countries.
Country Report
Myanmar or Burma is located in
South East Asia. It is bounded on the west by Bangladesh, India and the Bay of
Bengal; on the north and northeast by China; on the east by Laos and Thailand;
and on the south by the Andaman Sea. The traditional capital of the country was
Yangon. However, now the new capital is Naypyidaw.
The valley of the Ayeyarwady
River is one of the main rice growing regions
of the world and is the most densely populated part of the country. The Burmans,
a mongolic people who came down from Tibet by the 9th century represents 70% of
the mainly rural population. In the mountains of Myanmar, there are two major
groups of people : Kachins (in the Kachin State in the north) and the Chris
(chin state in the west). These People practice shifting cultivation known as
taunga and cut teak in the forests. Rakhine
State, a narrow coastal plain is home to another group of people, the Arkanese (or
Rakhine). Similarly, Shan state is home to Shans, a Tai people closely related
to the Thai whereas Kayah stat is inhabited by Karens, who are Tai- Chinese
origin.
90% of the population follow Buddhism
in Myanmar. However, there are Christian and Muslim minorities. Burmese (the tongue o the Burmans) is the
official language. However, each of Myanmars ethnic minorities has its own
language i.e. over 100 languages are spoken. Freedom of expression has been
highly restricted in Burma. Most of Myanmar has a tropical monsoon climate.
This country has hot humid summer and less cloudy, mild temperature, less humid
winter.
About 70% of the population works
in agriculture and forestry. Myanmar is rich in minerals. Petroleum, Tin, tungsten, lead, silver, zinc.
coal, copper are some of the minerals found in Myanmar. The
chief imports of the country are fabric, petroleum products and edible oil.
Myanmar suffered extensive damage in World War II and some sectors of its
economy have not yet fully recovered. Although this country has good economic relations with its neighbors,
significant improvements in economic governance, the political situation are
needed to promote serious foreign investment.
Works Cited
Interview Transcription:
Me: How do you communicate with
each other in your home country?
Thant: Our primary language is Burmese. We have so
many tribes and different tribes have different
languages. But our official
language is Burmese.
Me: What is the clothing style
for men and women?
Thant: We have unique traditional
dress. I think most of the Asian country have their national dress.
Me: Are women and men treated
differently in your country?
Thant: Actually, yeah. Sometimes people are not that open minded. In
some area yes but not all.
Me: How has your experience here
helped you interpret and respect cultural differences?
Thant: Saint Cloud is a really
diverse community. Students here come from all over the world. SO I can learn more about the culture. This university holds
programs like cultural cafe. So it has helped me
a lot to improve my knowledge about other culture.
Me: How long have you been to US?
Thant: Two and half year.
Me: Have you been able to visit
any other parts of the United States?
Thant: I have been to New York, Washington
and west coast
Me: What influenced you to come
to the US? Specially Saint Cloud?
Thant: My primary target is to
study and I came here to educate myself and graduate.
Me: Do you follow any religion?
Thant: I am a Buddhist.
Me: How important is religion in
your life?
Thant: Actually, religion plays a
vital role. It's good that you believe in something, you have faith in something. When you need help, you
just pray for it. You have that strong feeling that somebody is helping you and I believe in some kind of God.
Me: Do you have Buddhist Monasteries
here?
Thant: In Saint Paul, there are
some monasteries from my country.
Me: What is the political condition of your
country?
Thant: Three years ago, my country was military government. Military government ruled my country for almost 40 years. The country is completely
messed up. Corruption. However, now we have democracy.
Me: Do our country has any social
evils or taboos that you found are acceptable here in the US?
Thant: So far, I don't think there is any.
Me: How is dating and marriage
taken in your country?
Thant: In my cultural, marriage
and dating is very straight. our parent really keep their eye on their children.
Me: Are you allowed to Date in
your early age?
Thant: Actually, not officially
allowed but people do it anyway.
Me: Are most of the marriages
arranged marriage?
Thant: Some of the marriages are arranged marriage
but the culture is eventually disappearing. Right now, people just marry whoever they like.
Me: You mentioned that in your
country, you have different caste and ethnicity. So, is it acceptable to marry people with different caste and
ethnicity?
Thant: Yes, its fine. There are a
lot of people from my country here but there are only two people from my tribe.
Me: Is there anything more that
you want to tell about yourself and your country that people might not have a general idea about?
Thant: My country is beautiful
and have a lot of natural resources. My country is kind of poor because of military government but it getting
better.
Me: Do you have any questions for me now that I asked
so much from you?
Thant: Ah.. No.
Me: Do you enjoy speaking with
exchange students?
Thant: Yes.
No comments:
Post a Comment