Learning Journal 20

Every day I'm getting more and more excited to go to Tonga, but I'm also getting more and more worried about my project proposal.  I feel pretty good about my project as far as the subject and methods, but I'm still struggling with the background section.  There is just so much information about families, and different studies on families across the world, it's so stressful!  But, other than that, I feel like everything else is coming together, and it's starting to feel very real!

I thought the reading called "Baskets and Blankets" was kind of interesting, even though I wasn't really feeling all the art talk.  But I really liked how the author talked about how to learn about a culture you have to appreciate the beauty in the culture.  And sometimes you don't know enough or don't have enough experiences to really be able to understand another culture.  I think sometimes, even though I know better, when I go to Tonga I'll be able to understand everything about the culture and I'll be an expert about Tonga!  I think it's important to remember that even though I'll spend three months there just learning about the culture, you can't expect to come back with a comprehensive view of the Tonga culture.  It's just a small step in learning about the culture, in one area.  The article also made me realize how important it is to pay attention and look for the beauty in the culture. It's not like that will make us able to understand all the differences in the culture or their traditions, but I think it will make us more appreciative.

Learning Journal 12

One of the most frustrating parts of doing research about Tonga is how quickly things are changing over there.  From what I have heard, it seems like the Tongan culture prides themselves on their traditional ways and on their being one of the only monarchies not to be taken over by another nation.  Even though a lot of things they do are still very traditional and have resisted westernization, they are rapidly changing some of their ways.  For example, we talked in our section about how they are moving towards democratic elections.  Anyways, the reason this is so frustrating is because even a research article that is only ten years old can be very outdated. For this reason, it's hard to know what you can trust from the article and what no longer applies to how things really are.

I read an article about Class systems in Tonga.  The article was kind of difficult to read, and used pretty technical language, but it basically said that their is not really a class system in Tonga, or atleast their is no middle class.  The author said that because of the monarchy, there is a noble class, but then everyone who isn't in that class is pretty much the same.  If this is true, and if this is how it is today, I think that's pretty great.  I think it would be a nice change from American culture to have everyone be in one class, but unfortunately in Tonga, I think that class would be a pretty impoverished class.  I'm excited to go see for my self if this is still how it is today.

Another thing that I thought about while I was reading this article was how different observational research is from experimental.  Doing observational research is wonderful and can let you see a lot more than experimental research in many cases because you aren't limiting yourself to one survey or just a few specific questions, you can see the people and the way they live and see how that would influence their answers.  But, I think one thing to take into consideration about doing research in another culture is to not apply your findings to everyone in the population.  It's important to note that the research you collected may not apply to every single person or family in the whole culture.