(5/10) Mid-term Presentation Preparations

What did I do last week?

• Created and presented my mid-term presentation

• Analyzed my surveys and cultural kits

• Created my guest book mockup

• Printed out my entire zine mockup

Created and presented my mid-term presentation

I spent most of last week creating and preparing for my mid-term presentation. I must say, I think it’s a think of beauty.

Analyzed my surveys and cultural kits

I was able to get 23 responses on my survey from a good variety of different representations of the Chinese diaspora including Thailand, the U.S, Mongolia, and Korea. One of the questions I asked was if they knew where their family immigrated from and again I got a good variety from the north, south, and eastern coastal provinces of China. From my screener survey, I was able to send out 12 cultural kits and received 8 kits back. These included activities such as drawing comics, card sorting, and collages. They were used to probe insight about values, pain points, and imagined futures of Chinese New Year from my participants. For my analysis of both my survey and cultural kit, I created affinity maps to find relationships between the answers I received.

The first question I wanted to know was what people expect CNY to include? These answers would help to inform me what areas my design and prototype would need to incorporate to best facilitate cultural continuity. For these questions, I used the survey, and comic, collage, and table setting activity from my cultural kit to answer. The most overwhelming expectation for Chinese New Year is the inclusion of food and family. Some people ate specific things and some families had specific games they played. But mostly, people expect this to be a time to spend with family, gorging the entire day on delicious food. Basically, it's a giant party. The next big category down were all rituals relating to chasing away bad luck and welcoming good luck. The biggest one of all was receiving angbao or red pocket and fireworks. These are then followed by house cleaning, wearing lucky red, praying, etc. There were even some unique rituals in the mix. My favorite was "On New Year’s Day, we wake up and take a flower bath. Washing away all the bad luck of yesteryear." Lastly, it was evident in the responses that people are receptive to some changes in all their rituals. Foods change based on the diaspora location. Definition of family change to include chosen families or friends. This tells me that celebrating CNY is a lot of wiggle room.

Through the survey, the love letter exercises, and the card sorting, I asked participants to describe what they value most about Chinese New year. The top 3 are eating delicious food, making memories with the family, and receiving red pockets. These are basically also the same as what people expect from their CNY. What I find interesting is that 2/3 of these valued rituals are basically global (verified from activity in the cultural kit) and timeless. Another value people find in CNY is the vibes. People find it an important and nostalgic time. However, these are values that can only exist if something is done consistently over a long time. So, my design and prototype have to be something that can grow in importance and nostalgia over the years to come.

From the breakup letter, card sorting exercises, and the survey, I was able to discern some shifting values in the younger generation and things they are most open to changing about their future CNY celebrations. The number 1 mentioned thing that people hate about Chinese New Year is the family drama. Many say that it's one of the main things that prevent them from enjoying themselves. Many would rather celebrate it with friends or not celebrate it at all than deal with it. The second-largest category is how many rituals that their family does are no longer relatable or of value to them. This relegates them to observer status rather than active participation, diminishing their value in the festival. Lastly, other dislikes include the problems that come with modernity and diaspora-ness. These include timezones, the feeling of being disconnected from family due to distance, and increasing secularism which makes worshiping the gods unrelatable.

Lastly, I wanted to ask participants what was the most significant reason that stops them from celebrating CNY. The biggest obstacle is once again its biggest draw: family. The main grievance people mention is the distance and how an absence of family is enough to stop them from celebrating. How might my design make it easier for families separated by distance to still celebrate it together? Or perhaps the introduction of the concept of chosen families? Next is the stark contrast of importance CNY has between Asia and the western world. It's biggest than Christmas for the East Asian community and yet we get no time off. More effort needs to be put into it to make it feel special and important. How can my design help to still create that level of importance and "worth the effort"-ness? The last big obstacle is how the whole festival seems too large, too steeped in a cultural history that younger generations of diaspora communities feel like they have been locked out of. How can my design make it feel more manageable and accessible?

Created my guest book mockup

I created a guest book mockup using some paper and staples. It gave me a good idea of what I want the finished guest book to look like and what binding I want to use. I put questions that I used to write my autoethnography as the prompts inside my guest book.

Printed out my entire zine mockup

I was able to finally print out my entire zine on a paper mockup. I will use it read through my content for editing and storyboarding all my illustrations. I like how tangible the mockup feels in my hand and it’s nice to see what it might look like in the end.