Interview Report 3 (Sumit Rai)

Interview Report 3: Sumit Rai from Nepal

Preparations

As with me second report I found it unnecessary to do more research on Nepal, considering that my first and second interviewees were from Nepal, I felt that I had already acquired an appropriate amount of background information. All in all, preparations for this last interview were short, the only thing I changed is that I asked Sumit to talk as clearly as he could in a mid to high level voice for the recording device as I had a few problems with it in the first two interviews. The questions though are the same set from the first two interviews. Here is the list of question again just for review:

· What is your name? How old are you?

· Where did you grow up? What is your native language?

· What was it like growing up in Nepal?

· What kind of games did you play when you were growing up? What did you do for fun?

· What is the main food staple in Nepal? What types of food did you eat most commonly when you were a kid? Do you still follow the custom of eating with your right hand only? Why is this custom important in Nepal?

· What was school like in Nepal?

· When did you learn English?

· How long have you been in the US?

· Do you miss Nepal and your family?

· Why did you decide to come to the US?

· Did you have any problems coming to the US?

· Did you feel any culture shock when you came to the US?

· How do you feel about the school system here in the US?

· If you follow a religion, what religion do you follow?

· What ethnic group do you feel you were part of in Nepal?

· What holidays did you celebrate when you were growing up?

· Did you ever have a job in Nepal and if you did, what was your job?

· How do you feel about the current political system in Nepal?

· Did you like or dislike the monarchy before it was dissolved? Did you like the royal family? Did you like King Gyanendra?

· How do you feel about the caste system in Nepal? Has it ever affected you personally?

· Are there any civil rights issues in Nepal and if so, have any of them affected you personally?

· How do you feel about arranged marriages?

· Did your parents have an arranged marriage?

· Would you prefer to have an arranged marriage over other methods? Why or why not?

· What is your opinion on the tragedy in 2001 in which the royal family was massacred?

Finding an Interviewee

Niraj actually introduced me to Sumit when I asked him if he knew anybody else who would be willing to be interviewed. Sumit was more than willing to be interviewed. He actually came to me asking when and where we should do the interview, I set up a time and place and we were good to go.

Conducting the Interview

The third interview was scheduled to be at 2:30 in the Miller Learning Center on Wednesday, Nov 4th, 2009. We were both on time and we went down into the archive section of the library and found a quiet corner for us to conduct the interview. I asked if he would like to be recorded and he agreed so I set up my computer with my microphone to record the interview. The interview started off a little awkward, but as we progressed through the interview we became more comfortable with the each other and things smoothed out. I started with some questions about his background and we pretty much stayed on this topic for the first quarter of the interview.

The topic changed to Nepal's politics and culture about quarter way through the interview. Sumit had some strong opinions on the political situation. He felt that the people of Nepal were just looking for peace and accepted the change into a democratic republic because they felt betrayed Gyanendra who many people believed was behind the massacre of the royal family in 2001. But now things are not turning out as promised and there has been a lot of strife in this new political system. Sumit talked about his experience when the massacre happened and how he was woken up by his father to see the news and was shocked. He said "the blame was on Dipendra (the current prince) but people couldn't believe that he would do that because Dipendra had a different spot on people's minds and hearts. They thought he was very eligible to be the next king." So to believe that he went crazy, killed his entire family and then himself seemed like a far stretch. Thus many people turned their attention to the one person to gain political power out of this incident, the former king's brother Gyanendra. It only seemed logical that he would be the perpetrator behind the massacre because he was the only one to gain anything from it. So the people turned on him and sided with the Maoist rebels which lead to Gyanendra reestablishing parliament.

At this point we change the subject to something a little less intense as we talked about Nepali culture. I asked him about the taboo of using your left hand to eat and he responded that it is not really just about your left hand but rather your subordinate hand that people use for hygiene and thus it is seen as disgusting to use that hand to eat with. But it was common for most people to be right handed and thus use their left hand for hygiene. In fact in grade school they made fun of left-handed children because they used their left hand to eat with, but that changed as they matured. Now in the US he is used to seeing people using their left hand for anything as they are from a different culture.

We ended the interview with some back and forth dialog talking about our perspectives of our separate cultures and the stereotypes that follow with that. Growing up, Sumit thought all American's would have freckles. He thought this because he read some American comic strips in Nepal including "Archie" which featured many characters with freckles. So when he came to the US he was rather surprised to find that very few people had freckles.

Sumit Rai’s Biographical Abstract

Sumit is 21 years old and has been in the US about 2 and a half years. After graduating high school he already wanted to study abroad because his sister was already in the US. While studying electrical engineering in Nepal he received his visa to come to the US for his education and came to SCSU to live with his sister. His sister helped him a lot in adjusting to the US and its culture and customs. He had learned English in grade school so he did not have any problems starting to communicate in the US, but he still had to adjust to the Midwestern diction. Today he is studying electrical engineering here at SCSU and is hoping to bring his education back home when the political situation calms down.

Interview Process from My Perspective

To be honest, I felt this was the best of the three interviews. Not only did it go very smoothly, but I felt that I connected with Sumit pretty well and towards the end we were having a good time just talking to each other. I was surprised when he opened up to me about his personal experience with tragedy in 2001 and I felt that his opinion on the situation there was very well founded. The dialog we had towards the end of the interview also included a question he asked me about how I felt approaching people from other countries and it actually caught me off guard a little bit. I had to think about it and I told him that I felt that I unconsciously kind of avoided interactions with people from other countries because I understand that there would be some awkwardness involved with those types of interactions. But when I notice that I am doing that I try to go out of my way to actually avoid thinking that way and try to interact with people from other countries and ethnicities. He actually agreed with me completely saying that he felt the same way, that at first he would avoid interaction with people from different ethnic backgrounds for the same reason. So this made me appreciate the our interaction at that time a little more as we were both purposefully stepping out of our comfort zones to try to interact with someone with an entirely different ethnic background.

Nepal: A Short Report

My report as not changed much from interview to interview because the new information I have been getting has only supplemented the information I already had. Thus my country report from interview to interview only has some revisions and added information.

Nepal is located in Southern Asia, between India and China, on the Himalayan mountain range. There has been a long standing history of Hindu and Buddhist culture in Nepal and for about the last 250 years Nepal has had a Monarchial government. In the 1970’s, the monarchy established a parliament within its power to help govern the people. In 1996 Maoist rebels started a civil war that lasted for 10 years. Tragedy struck the royal family in 2001 as every member of the family, except the brother of Birendra, the previously standing king, and his family, was murdered.

The blame for the tragedy was placed on Dipendra, the crown prince at the time who had allegedly shot himself after committing the crime. Birendra's brother, Gyanendra took power and almost immediately dissolved parliament. But there was suspicion that Gyanendra had actually plotted the massacre of the royal family himself to gain power. This suspicion by the public gave greater power to the Maoist rebels which were trying to bring a more socialist system of government into Nepal. By 2006 protest pressured the king in to reestablishing parliament. An election was held in 2008 and parliament met for the first time by may. In this first meeting, parliament dissolved the monarchy that had controlled Nepal for nearly 250 years.

Nepal has a primarily Hindu/Buddhist culture but also includes many other religious communities. There are over 30 different ethnic groups in Nepal each based on an individual’s caste and location in Nepal, but recently these ethnic groups have started to merge. Nepal has had a caste system for centuries, but recently the government has been attempting to make bridges between the castes and eliminate the system all together. Some of these attempts at dissolving the caste system included creating government positions to represent people from lower castes and creating equal job opportunities for all castes. Younger generations, mainly in urban areas, are no longer holding the traditions associated with the caste system, such as limiting social contact to within your caste, or acting in a manner that is suitable towards your caste. But older generations are finding it hard to let go of these age old traditions. Rural areas have not removed any of the old traditions at all in fact.

There are many languages in Nepal, but the primary language is Nepali. In some grade schools in Nepal English is the primary language instead of Nepali. This is done to help the students learn English by artificially placing them in a situation in which English is the only language they can use. The school system is rather similar to the system in the US as it has a k-12 system, but differs in the style of progression. There is no grading system in the Nepalese school system; instead a comprehensive test is taken at the end of each year of schooling to progress to the next year of schooling. Sumit, like many other urban Nepalese students, decided to study abroad for college. Recently it has become common for Nepalese students from the urban areas to study abroad for college. This is due to a couple of factors including the political distress in Nepal.