Primary Qualitative Research

To carry out the interviews, three groups of first generation Chinese migrants were identified: (a) professionals and business owners, (b) administrative and service workers, and (c) students. It is worth noting that homemakers, asylum seekers and children caregivers fall within the second category. All of them do either housework and / or take care of children. Although they are not monetarily paid for their responsibilities, the services they provide in

77 their everyday tasks can be argued to be economically productive because they make it possible for other family members to go out to work. The Chinese catering industry is the mainstay of Chinatowns throughout the world and Liverpool is no exception. It is thus an industry that presents employment opportunities to immigrants and possibly serves as a springboard for them to scale the social mobility ladder. This is set against a background of present day realities in which, as a result of higher aspirations, many subsequent generations of British Chinese have shied away from work in the Chinese eating establishments (Shang, 1984). Coupled with tightening migration policies, a shortage of workers, especially of chefs, has been expressed (European Union Chinese Journal, 2009a).

At the same time, the demand for foods from all over the world is expected to be sustained as people are increasingly exposed to other cultures through the media. Further contributing to the demand for Chinese goods and services is the influx of Chinese higher education students especially from PRC and Hong Kong. Students from these countries account for, respectively, the highest and third highest percentages of accepted applicants into the UK in 2008 (UCAS, 2010)11. Other than these profiles of Chinese migrants, there are also individuals who are represented in the professional rungs of society. Very often, this group is neglected in studies but they are also a contributing factor in impacting the evolution of Chinatowns, and perhaps more so in today’s context in which we witness a rising presence of Chinese professionals.

It is thus interesting to find out if and how the new waves of first generation Chinese migrants in Liverpool will shape and be shaped by the development of Liverpool’s Chinatown. The benefits of studying first generation Chinese migrants aside, the broad

11 _{Particularly in Liverpool, the academic year 2009-2010 witnessed the first wave of XJTLU students into}

78 categorisations of the Chinese migrants would be very useful to tease out not only age and socio-economic differences, but also to reveal insights into variations due to nationalities. Furthermore, this mode of categorisation allows for one more advantage and that is that no age band criterion is set. Such an approach would allow me to also interview elderly people who fall within the occupational profiles and they would be a very rich resource as they will be able to bridge the present with the past. In total, 68 research participants in Liverpool (22 from the group of professionals and business owners, 25 from the service and administrative category and 21 from the group of students) were approached via my own contacts that had been formed since 2008 through my part-time working stints in Chinese businesses, volunteering commitments, as well as personal social relationships that had been formed in Liverpool. For some of the participants who were referred by gatekeepers, recruitment of these individuals was accessed via the following organisations as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Organisations approached

Organisation Participants

Merseyside Chinese Community Development Association

Elderly, adult workers and homemakers

Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church Adult workers and homemakers Universities in Liverpool12 Students

Source: Author

12 _{Mass email through Universities’ student bodies / organisations requesting interested student participants}

79 A snow ball technique followed from the initial recruited participants. Biographical interviews were conducted with the elderly and relevant adults; and semi-structured qualitative ones with the adults and students. In the semi-structured interviews, I prepared a list of questions which I wanted my interviewees to touch on. These included general socio- demographic questions, questions about their migration motivation, migration process, day- to-day experiences here in Liverpool and their short- and longer-term aspirations. This interviewing technique allowed greater flexibility for the emergence of other dimensions which I may have been oblivious to. Semi-structured interviews therefore allowed interviewees to talk about issues other than those that were asked of them.

For individuals who are older and are perceived to have richer life experiences, I used biographical interviews instead. I started the interviews with very general questions such as their age, where are they from, their reasons for migrating and what have been their experiences thus far. Biographical interviews also allowed for sensitivity to interviewees’ circumstances to be taken into consideration. For example, I was not fully aware of the different migration process all my participants underwent. Some of them, especially asylum seekers, have gone through illegal migration journeys (sometimes repeated returns to their home countries) over a long time period. Although they may have embarked on a journey from, for example, PRC to the UK, their migration journeys could have resulted in them going to many other countries as well as repatriations back to PRC before they finally came to Liverpool. That this information was offered during the interview can be seen on the one hand as effective gaining of trust by the interviewer, but also because an open-ended method of questioning allowed the interviewee to be able to broach these topics, if they are willing to talk about it.

80 The average duration of each interview was approximately one hour. The shortest recorded interview was 30 minutes while the longest interview was approximately five hours. All the interviews were conducted face-to-face except for three which were carried out over Skype. As much as possible, the face-to-face interviews took place at public and neutral places such as at fast food restaurants and cafes. However, there were occasions when I was asked to conduct the interviews in respondents’ homes and I would oblige when I assessed it appropriate to do so. During these instances, I would also notify my next-of-kin of the venue, as well as the timing and duration I would be at their homes. The interviews themselves also threw up surprises at times and on these occasions, I must admit that I did not anticipate these occurrences and was sometimes thrown off guard. For example, I was sometimes stood up at agreed meeting venues and not only had I wasted time standing in the open, at times outside Chinese restaurants, I had to reschedule my interviews so as to fit in revised appointments. Additionally, I would at times receive calls informing me to meet my participants in half an hour or an hour’s time. Such last minute notifications would once again throw my schedule into disarray and I would have to re-organise my appointments and commitments.

Sometimes, I would be requested to do my interview participants favours in return for their participation in my research. Although my information sheet given to them at the outset of the interviews explicitly highlighted that there would be no benefits or remuneration in return for their participation, some of my respondents still went ahead to ask for favours. These requests included helping to proof-read their Ph.D. thesis, helping to tutor their children, accompanying them to immigration offices as well as helping to distribute flyers at Liverpool One for their businesses’ publicity. Wherever possible, I acceded to their requests but I was firm in turning down demands that I was uncomfortable to undertake. Another type of occurrence which I was somewhat prepared for was interviewees breaking down during the

81 interviews. I foresaw that some migrants may have had more difficult life situations resulting in their decisions to migrate for economic reasons. In recounting their migration journeys as well as their background etc, I anticipated that some respondents might feel emotionally distressed given the topic involved. Indeed, some of them broke down but I was prepared and could say that I handled such situations well, empathising with my respondents and ensuring that the interviews did not end abruptly. I carried out the interview in a manner that did not make them feel I was only there to listen and take away useful information from them for my research without giving anything in return. I was genuine in empathising with their plight, I gave them sufficient space and time to compose themselves and I offered help in ways that I was sure my promises could be fulfilled.

In seeking all my interviewees’ agreement to participate in the research, I would first briefly describe what my research project was about. If the individuals agreed to participate, I would hand out a detailed information sheet (English and Chinese versions were available) for them to read and seek further clarifications before I obtained their signed consent (consent forms were also available in English and Mandarin). Only two participants refused to provide written consent and instead, they provided verbal consent.

With regard to written consent, some participants were uncomfortable with providing their full names, as required in my consent form, and asked to sign without writing their names, or to provide only a first name. With regard to assuring participants’ anonymity, I reiterated to my participants that the materials collected would be stored in my personal computer and later analysed. The data would be anonymised and only I would have access to the raw data. Furthermore, I offered to let my participants read my draft thesis before I submitted to the

82 examiners and offered verbal accounts of my thesis for those with a weaker grasp of the English language but no one took up my offer.

The interviews were carried out in English, Mandarin or Cantonese and were taped whenever possible. Of all the interviews, only two were not taped and one was taped half- way in accordance with the participants’ wishes. These recordings were then transcribed in verbatim form and subsequently translated. With regard to coding, I went through each transcript individually and developed a matrix (one for each of the three categories of participants) in which I typed out all the main themes and sub-themes on the left-hand rows. After that, I went through all the transcripts a second time and labelled interviewees, in an adjoining column, against the themes if these themes were present in the transcripts. After this was done, all themes that had less than three interviewees marked against the observation were deleted. Themes that were deemed ethically contentious were also deleted. Subsequently, I went through all the transcripts a third time to check for inaccuracies, themes I had earlier missed out and inconsistencies. Key observations were then highlighted and synthesised, and comparisons were made between the observations arising from the three categories of research participants.