The first interview

Report of culture and country

During the whole interview, I noticed that  minseong  really like his own country. he lives in north part of Korea. Mostly it have hills and mountains; wide coastal plains in west and south. The capital of Korea is Seoul. The population of his home country is smaller than America. “The age from 0 to 14 years occupy 16.8% (male 4,278,581/female 3,887,516). The age from 15 to 64 years occupy 72.3% (male 17,897,053/female 17,196,840). The age from 65 years and over occupy 10.8% (male 2,104,589/female 3,144,393).” “South Korea lies in a temperate climate region with a predominantly mountainous terrain. Its territory covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of 50 million”. The official language is Korean, and the official scripts are Hangul. English widely taught in junior high and high school. Lee Myung-bak is a president of South Korea. The government type is republic. The national holiday is Liberation Day, 15 August (1945). “The nationality flag of Korea, the blue section represents the negative cosmic forces of the yin, while the red symbolizes the opposite positive forces of the yang; each trigram (kwae) denotes one of the four universal elements, which together express the principle of movement and harmony.” he likes his home country much than here. Not only the weather is warmer than here, but also includes other aspects from Korea. For example, he likes eating Korea food. Korea food has many choices, but the food in America makes his feel bored. Because he thought American diets is not healthy and almost are fast food. he thought the welfare in Korea is not developed. The policies is in a condition of developing because poor people can’t get more welfare from government, but rich people can get many welfare and get the maximum benefit from policies. Korea currently is among the world's 20 largest economies. “The South Korean economy's long term challenges include a rapidly aging population, inflexible labor market, and overdependence on manufacturing exports to drive economic growth.”

Text from WIKIPEDIA is in quotation marks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea

Visited date is 3/13/201

Preparation of interview

My preparation for the interview looks simple because I have finished preparing the entire fourteen questions in class. I found a friend from Korea and he is my IEC classmate. We decided to meet in  campus apartment 411. Before the interview, I came to library earlier and printed two pages of questions. One is for me, the other one is for interviewee. I started to look through each question, and consider which two questions can be connected together because I want to seriate all questions that make interviewee feel comfortable to be asked. In addition, I estimate the time that to be used in interview. I thought the time of interview can’t be very short, so I need to prepare counter plan. I also prepared some another questions about personal life. Actually, my questions for the interview are full enough, and the time for the interview is to be calculated. Then I meet him on time. I also used my cell phone to record the entire interview. I didn’t spend much time on transcribe notes because I don’t want the interviewee to wait for me. I just write down some key words. 

Description my interview

     I thought this first interview went very well. The interviewee is my friend from Korea. We just talked as friends without nervous and strange. I thought the importance for a good interview is interviewer’s preparation and comports. We should keep our purpose in our mind; we need learn how to use mild tone to communicate with interviewee; we might do our best to make them feel comfortable and interested to talk with us. During the whole interview, I also found some interesting topic to talk about. For example, we talked a kind of interviewee‘s food, it is called Kimichee.  Kimichee also is my favorite food too.We talked about the steps to make it. That’s truly interesting. I do learn a lot about Korea’s culture and educations. This make me feel impressed. As I am an international student, when we talked some question, I also felt we have understandable similarities. Interviewee’s experience made me find some similar point. Last but not least, interviewee might not good at to describe the history of    . He told me he doesn’t know a lot nationality flag’s meaning. Anyway, I felt achieving lot knowledge from the interview.

 

Below is my transcription of entire interview:

Me: Hi, my name is Yue Wang. You also can call me Carla. Today, I will ask you fourteen main questions about your country and life in America. I appreciate that you accept this interview, and you can feel free to talk with me. First, could you introduce yourself?

Interviewee: Hi, I’m minseong. I am student here. I’m a Korea boy.

Me: wow, Korea is near china, how many people are there in your family?

Interviewee: well, there are four members---my mother, father, younger brother and me.

Me: ok, do you have any cousin?

Interviewee: ye, I have four cousion.

Me: it’s so many. Why did you decide to come to SCSU instead of studying or working in your own country?

Interviewee: Because this is my dream when I was young, I really want to study in U.S.A. I want to improve my English.

Me: really? Good dream! Do you like America’s life? Why?

Interviewee: yes, I like. When I was young, I often imagine the life in U.S.A. I liked here, but a little bit boring.

Me: that’s right. What’s your opinion of the American diet?

Interviewee: When I was in Korea, I really like American diet. For example, hamburgers, fired chickens, and subway. I am living here, and I eat fast food frequently that makes me feel really tired.

Me: That makes you feel uncomfortable and unhealthy?

Interviewee: of course.

Me: What’s your favorite food in your country?

Interviewee: I truly like Korea food. There are many choices in Korea.

Me: ok, do you know how to make it?

Interviewee: It’s really difficult. I know every mother in Korea know how to make Kimichee

Me: ha-ha, how many countries have you visited?

Interviewee: maybe four cities.

Me: Which city or country is you most like?

Interviewee: Florida, I went there with my girl friend.

Me: nice memory! You missed you country and parents, right? So how do you contact with your parents?

Interviewee:  ye, I miss them very much, I always talk them to use Skype on Internet.

Me: Will you go back to your country when you graduated?

Interviewee: yes

Me: How would you define freedom in America?

Interviewee: I think America has more freedom than Korea. In Korea, everyone have to work. If they don’t work, they will have no money to live. In contact, welfare in America is pretty good. But in my country, poor people can get less welfare, and rich people can get more welfare. I think it is not fair.

Me: Well, I know your mean. Can you describe your country’s flag?

Interviewee: I am not sure about describing the meaning of patterns. I just know the red part maybe means sun, and the dark blue part maybe means sea.

Me: Ok, do you have anything you want to talk with me?

Interviewee: no.

Me: That’s all my content of interview. Thank you so much, I do learn a lot of parts about your country.