Anthropology Take Home Exam

Name: Leung Lok Wai SID: 1155092495

Question 1

1. Participant observation is so important for anthropological research due to the

collection of first-hand information and the subjective point of view.

Firstly, it is because of collection of first-hand information. As mentioned in

lecture PowerPoint, participant observation is the technique of learning a

people’s culture through social participation and personal observation within the

community being studied, as well as interviews and discussion with individual

members of the group over an extended period of time (Page 9, ANTH 1020 week

2 PowerPoint). As anthropologists can observe the target group’s culture and

lifestyle in person, it is a more reliable first-hand resource and do not have any

changes or misleading information involved in their work. This can enhance the

credibility and reliability of anthropologists’ work in the anthropologists’

community.

Another reason of the importance of participant observation is to keep the

subjective point of view. Anthropologist are also a part of their own community,

when it comes to impression of other foreign cultures, it is difficult to have

subjective point of view. For example, when Hong Kong citizens talk about Islam
people, most people may have related to terrorist attacks, ISIS etc. However, that

is a totally wrong description of Islam culture but just a misconception from

ourselves. Therefore, participant observation is needed to allow anthropologists

to observe target culture in a more subjective way and remove their own bias,

which also ensure the credibility and reliability of their own works.
Question 2

The first possible reason that people in Hong Kong become more and more

hostile to legal and illegal immigrants is due to the distribution of public welfare.

As some immigrants do not have the right to work in community yet, they can

only rely on the monthly budget provided by the government. Although the

amount of money for each immigrant and their family are not that many, it is

unfair in some local citizens’ eyes, especially the government now is being

criticized for not able to provide sufficient support and living needs to tackle

poverty. Some people then might think one of the reasons of the failure of

government’s welfare support is due to those “extra” expenditure on non-local

immigrants, which is one of the reasons for the hostile actions of local people

towards immigrants.

The second possible reason of those hostile actions is because of competitions of

job opportunities. The living expenses in Hong Kong is the second highest in the

world out of 133 cities according to The Economist in the beginning of 2016 (T.

(2016, March 10). Worldwide cost of living survey. Retrieved December 13, 2016,

from http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/03/daily-chart-4),

which shows the utmost importance of job opportunities for citizens in order to

maintain a standard living environment and be able to purchase living needs. Of

course, immigrants also need to work to sustain their living needs too as most of

them might just rely on the small amount of money from government. However,

local citizens might found offensive when immigrants are also finding and having

competitions with them between job opportunities as they believe they are the

locals who should gain job opportunities before them. Therefore, the hostile

feeling towards immigrants have built into their heart and cause them doing

hostile actions towards immigrants.

Another possible reason of those hostile actions is the feel of superior. Hong

Kong is famous for the multi-culture immigrants in this small place, but some

locals do have misconceptions on those cultural minority groups, like Islam,

Indians, Pakistan etc., and those misconceptions mostly do turn out become a

kind of discrimination. Use Indians as an example, people usually would relate

Indians to curry, or cultural etiquette like eat with their hands, from their own

preconceptions. However, some people actually do not understand and respect

their culture and make jokes or laugh on them base on those cultural features.

And hence, some people might even think that they are more superior than

those ethnic minorities base on those cultural factors and have hostile actions

towards them, similar to the actions of Nazi Germany of Jewish genocide in

World War II. The example might be a bit too over and Hong Kong’s situation is
way far from it, but that is how the feel of superior will cause hostile actions

towards immigrants.

One possible reasons for recently hostile actions might be the generalization of

actions of different ethnic groups. Majority people will use the image of what

they saw from a small group of people from immigrants to generalize all of those

immigrants. Of course, not all people from that group will behave worst like that

but this is the same kind of reason for why a big mistake made from a student

will definitely ruin the school’s reputation. Take mainland China immigrants as an

example, currently there are news and reports show that some visitors or

immigrants from mainland China have been cutting queues and excreting in

public areas, which leaves a poor image of mainlanders in most people’s mind.

However, that do not include every mainlander in Hong Kong. There are still

some mainland immigrants that will queue, respect social rules and have high

public health awareness. However, some local citizens are sidetracked by those

poor representatives of the group and have hostile feelings and actions towards

the main group, which also causes hostile feeling when they encountered the

same group of immigrants.

CITATIONS INDEX

-Page 9, ANTH 1020 week 2 PowerPoint

-The Data Team. (2016, March 10). Worldwide cost of living survey. Retrieved

December 13, 2016, from

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/03/daily-chart-4