My object is Buddha Beads. I am still struggling with the community that I am going to choose. So I did this interview not only for just getting some information for future project, but also hopefully I can get some inspirations from those interviewers. I interview 10 people includes 5 classmates and friends, 4 random people on the street, and my mom ( she is a typical buddhist, and I learned a lot from her). And during the interview, I found out not every stranger is an indifference monster. I was so afraid and shy to interrupt people and ask questions, but surprisingly they were really nice. when I chose the interviewers I thought it would be really boring to just ask Buddhists only. I am actually more interested in those people who don’t know about buddhism, how they think about it. So although it’s only 10 people, I still got amount of information from a larger view. First, I asked Do they know Buddhism? The answer is surprisingly all yes. I didn’t realize that this religion has been spread across. And the second question was are they Buddhists? Because I had different question for buddhist or nonbuddhist later. 60% of them are buddhists. 40% are not buddhist. I also asked do they know buddha beads? what does it use for? Most of them know that is a scared religion object, and those who are buddhist said it is used when they reciting mantras, but one people said she thought it was just something like a bracelet or accessories. My favorite question was how they define Buddhism? I got many different answers. Tolerance, kind, purity, spiritual guide, religion, belief…the interesting thing was when they answer this questions, the face expression were really funny like they never thought about this question before even those buddhists, and all the answers were really short only few words. I asked buddhists what kind of activities they do everyday. The answers were reciting mantra, praying, always reminds herself and be good. one of my friends said she is an vegetarian. I like this answer, because it was different and a typical characteristic that buddhists have and ignored by me. I think I can dig more information from this point. After this interview, I really think this kind of primary source are really important and useful for me or other who are researching something. It make me engage with people and get information from communicate from others and I got a lot informations not only for communicating but also just by experiencing this new experience too.
