Preparations
How I approached people
As explained in
my first interview, I had sent out an ad through the International
Students Bulletin from Lawrence Hall. I had a few issues with people
not responding back after saying they said they were willing to
interview, but eventually one of them responded back to me when I
tried to arrange a time to interview. After several emails, we were
able to establish a date, time, and place.
When, where, and how I conducted and
recorded the interview
The interview
was conducted on Friday November 9th at 4 pm. It was
originally planned for 2, but my interviewee had something come up
and asked if I could move it to 4, which I was able to do. We met in
the Miller Center lobby and then went to a table at the back of the
library. I talked a little bit with my interviewee and gave him a
copy of the interview questions, and after we had a couple of
minutes, I asked for permission to record the interview to
transcribe. After obtaining permission, I turned on my phone recorder
and set it between us on the table.
Who I interviewed
The name of my
interviewee is Chandra Pandey. He is a current student at St. Cloud
State University, and is majoring in Electrical Engineering. He has
been at St. Cloud State for 4 and a half years. He came to St. Cloud
State based on a recommendation from one of his friends back home
that went to St. Cloud State, and because St. Cloud State offers
lower tuition than many universities to international students. He
lived in different areas in Nepal because he father was a police
officer that worked for the government.
Interview Report
I feel like this interview went well. Chandra was talkative and
seemed interested in sharing a lot about Nepal. I was still nervous
conducting the interview, but my interviewee didn't seem
uncomfortable. As with my previous interviews, I went through all my
questions, jumping around when the opportunity arose, while
clarifying answers as needed and asking follow up questions. This
interview served to reinforce the information from my previous
interviews, and I learned many new things at the same time. In
particular, Chandra seemed interested in talking about the Maoist
insurgency, and the current state of the government in Nepal.
Describe
anything that surprised you
One of the main things that surprised me was learning about how India
is attempting to more or less control Nepal. At some point when we
were talking about the government of Nepal, Chandra talked about how
India tried to influence Nepalese politics very heavily. When India
was owned by England, they had an agreement to let Nepal be
independent. India originally followed on this agreement, but in more
recent years has been trying to gain more power over Nepal, even
going so far as to punish them with a trade blockade in one incident.
Another interesting thing I recall was when Chandra described the
Nepalese defending themselves from invasion in the Colonial Era. The
Nepalese did not have advanced technology, but they had military
bases on mountains, and in particular had some interesting tactics
such as dropping beehives on advancing enemies. This gave me some
insight into how Nepal was able to remain an independent country.
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