Trip to Talas

The second phase of my research has now officially started. I went to Talas, which is a province in the northwest corner of the country. I recorded about six to seven hours of interviews. Actually, it is very difficult for me to type this entry because I have been transcribing into Russian for several hours now. My fingers have become accustomed to using the Cyrillic keyboard layout.

I’m not too picky about who I interview. At least not right now. I only have a basic idea of how people view their lives, based on the free lists from AUCA (which I am almost done analyzing--expect a post on that in the coming week) and many informal conversations with people. The interviews I did in Talas were more formal. I used the interview questions (see previous posts) as a jumping off point, and then went wherever the interview took me.

Finding people to interview is interesting. We (I went with two translators--post on that to follow) didn’t have any set appointments by the time we got to Talas. We basically asked the person with whom we were staying if she knew any interesting people. I was even willing to talk to non-interesting people. It didn’t really matter to me. She thought of a few people she know, made a few phone calls, and suggested a few places we could look. My translators were both from Talas and knew a few more people. In the end, I was able to talk to the following people:

1. An average Kyrgyz householder, with an averaged sized family, and above-average religious sensibilities. We just walked over to his house on the off chance he was home. He wasn’t--he was at mosque. We waited for him, he showed up about fifteen minutes later, and spent the next hour and a half talking to me. He talked to me about why he was religious, what he did as part of his religion, and how he felt his religion affected him.
2. A professor at the local university. He splits his time between teaching and taking care of a respectably-sized piece of land. He gave me an apply from his orchards when we finished the interview. This one wasn’t too much about religion--he doesn’t consider himself really religious. He is rather patriotic, though. He talked about the country a little, but mostly about how he and people like him live.
3. A high-school teacher. This was actually the most useful interview of them all. She had a talent for explaining how she viewed the world. Her interview is actually the one that I have spend the last few hours transcribing. We talked a lot about daily needs--what people do to get by, how people live in general, what the government can do to help, what people should be responsible for in their own lives. Very informative.
4. A student at the local mosque. This one actually took some work to set up. There are restrictions when it comes to people entering mosques. You need to be properly attired, especially if you are a woman, which my translator was. The students there were also a little wary of the American with the tape recorder. They wanted (in fact, all of the people I interviewed wanted) to know what I was going to use the interview for, who I was going to give it to. We finally lured him back to the house I was staying at, and he gave a good interview about how he became interested in Islam two years ago.
5. A man who was extremely interested in his genealogy. That’s actually not to out-of-character for the Kyrgyz. Everyone is supposed to know their male ancestors back for seven generations (their “seven fathers”). Even if they don’t know all seven, every knows that they are supposed to know all seven. Other Central Asian ethnic groups don’t really do that. His interview gave me several insights into how people here view family.
6. An old woman who converted from Islam to become a Jehovah’s Witness. She converted about ten years ago. She goes proselytizing everyday and goes to the Kingdom Hall three times a week. I was interested in talking to her to understand what would make her convert from a religion that is so dominant.
7. A Dungan woman who married a Kyrgyz. Dungans are a Chinese group. They have delicious cuisine--I actually think I like it more than Kyrgyz food, and I like Kyrgyz food a lot. This was actually the woman we stayed with. Her children are grown, and now she manages a café. She is quite religious, and a pleasure to talk to.

The purpose of these interviews was to get a general picture of how people view things like their country, ethnicity, and religion on an everyday basis. They actually accomplished that purpose to a much greater extent than I anticipated (see entry on just-because answers). They also generated a lot more questions. In all, I would say the trip was a great success.