During the past week I continued searching for people to interview and have interviewed 35 people till now. The places I went included a drive-in theater, a Costco wholesale center and the Clifton plaza. I went to see a movie with friends at an open drive-in theater. Before the movie started, there was plenty of leisure time when people gathered together chatting, playing games or simply enjoying the beauty of nature. So I took out questionnaire from my bag and went directly to people. Before I did that, I felt a bit uneasy and was afraid of being refused and feeling awkward. But it turned out that most people were very friendly and helpful, which reminded me of an article I read about the cultural differences between America and China. It was said that by comparison Americans show more respect and friendliness towards strangers while Chinese are not as amiable to strangers. Instead, Chinese will spare no efforts to help you once you become their friends or families while Americans still keep a certain distance between people and enjoy a higher sense of privacy and individualism even among friends and families. From what I’ve experienced, this point of view makes sense apparently.
The second crowded place I went to search for people was Costco, which gave me a very different experience. About one third of people I approached turned me down and the refusal rate of my “cold sale” was so high that I had to apply a better strategy there. I identified that people in couples were more willing to accept an interview than a single shopper; a single male shopper had a better chance of interview than a single female shopper. People who walked casually were easy targets while people who looked earnest and pushed their shopping carts in a hurry were obviously not in their best mood for an interview. One interesting example was a couple I met on the isle for female apparel. The wife was looking for something desiring and the husband was so boring standing beside the cart, looking at nothing. When I offered him a chance to do an interview, he was so happy that he answered each question very thoroughly and gratefully.
The last place I went for interviews was the Clifton plaza near my apartment. It was around 8 p.m. on a weekend night after dinner. People took a leisure walk and grabbed an enticing ice cream at the open area, enjoying the coziness of a windy summer night. Time was not important at that moment because people were not in a hurry. Talking was a more than pleasant matter to them, especially talking to a stranger, an international or exotic face like me. Therefore all the people I met there were glad to accept my interviews.
From the data I collected, I found that my interviewees ranged from various ages and included male and female. One observation was that women were more willing to hire a professional pack and ship company while men showed more willingness to do it themselves. Young people were more concerned about the price than the elder. My next step is to make better use of these data for my project.
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