What Did I Ask?
I started the interview by collecting background information and immigration histories of the interviewees. I asked each woman when and under what circumstances their families or themselves arrived in Canada, what were the reasons behind the migration, and where did the family land in the country, and whether the family had any close or distant connections in Canada. Then I approached the participants with questions that explore the Chinese cultural influences and imprints in their lives. For instance, I asked whether Mandarin or Cantonese was the dominant language in their household, or did they mostly communicate with family members in English. I also asked if their families practiced Chinese traditions, such as celebrating festivals or making Chinese dishes, and whether they grew up with a religion (Christianity or Buddhism). These questions allowed me to get a general idea of how parental influences, family background, geographically location, socio-economic situation and language shaped their reception and interpretations of their ethnic identities.
After building this foundation of understanding, I approached with a set of questions regarding fashion and self-fashioning practices in their early adulthood. I asked what clothes did they like to wear on an everyday basis, what clothes would they wear to attend a fancy social occasion. I then asked them to describe their connections to their Chinese heritage, how they feel about ethnic clothing like Qipao and did they ever wear it. If they never wear an ethnic dress, I asked them to explain why not and if they had any concerns to wear it. I followed up with where did the participants shop for clothes, who were their fashion inspirations from social media (or mass media) at their time, and what was the popular/dominant style like during that decade. Depending on personal comfort level, I encouraged them to explain whether they were (or felt like) being dressed differently as a child. Did they feel any peer or social pressure of choosing clothes and styles growing up, and if they had any fashion-related conflicts (dress, hair, tattoo, piercing) with their parents? Then I asked whether they ever felt different from their peers in terms of appearance and if they ever tried to use fashion and clothing as a strategy to “fit in”.
Next, I asked the participants about their daily routine of make-up if they wore any, what cosmetic brands they liked to use, whether they changed make-up styles to fit different occasions, who did they look up for makeup inspirations. I showed them images of popular Asian and North American makeup styles and ask whether they can perceive a difference. If they had a preference, which one did they think would suit them more, what were the popular makeup trend of their time, and whether they felt any peer or social pressure in doing makeup at the time. Then, I moved to media influences of their fashion styles, followed by questions like how media portrayal of Chinese North American women were like in their time? Who did they look up to as a fashion icon growing up? Did media portrayal of Chinese/Asian Canadian women influence the ways of how they dress and do their makeup?
Finally, I asked each participant to think of a creative combination of an outfit, makeup, shoes, hairstyle and accessories that can best capture their style for a gallery show. They were encouraged to send images of their own clothes or to describe what types of products they would wear.
