One of the first things that you learn when doing fieldwork in a foreign country is that nothing you learn in a classroom can adequately simulate what it's like trying to do fieldwork firsthand. Before hitting the ground here, I felt like I'd had a pretty solid foundation in how to conduct myself once I arrived. I'd taken a qualitative methods course that taught various interview techniques. I'd read a considerable amount of "How to do fieldwork in China" books. I'd taken 8 years worth of classes in Chinese language training. I'd done a preliminary field study for a month last year. And yet, despite all of this training and preparation, I still feel like fieldwork is a steep learning curve. No matter how much you read about which methods are best for taking fieldnotes during ethnographic observations, or how to ensure that you don't unduly influence the way a respondent will respond to you, there's really nothing that can prepare you for those moments when an interview takes a sudden, unexpected turn.
I look at these moments as important learning experiences. And as such, I feel like sharing the lessons learned is important. And so, we come to my story: the visit I paid a few weeks ago to the Jinan Women's Mosque.
Any study that seriously wants to describe Hui culture needs to seriously examine the role Islam plays in the community. I've talked, at length, about the importance of faith and faithlessness in establishing the complex and non-uniform identity that is Hui identity. In an effort to gain a better understanding of what the religious life of Jinan's Hui Quarter is like, I decided that observing Friday Afternoon Prayers (called the Jumu'ah) was an excersize that should not be optional. However, this is the first major point of awkwardness: I'm not Muslim, and given that, there are places where I simply can't go inside the mosque complex, including inside the prayer hall. As, such, I felt that it was imperative to seek the blessing of the Imam. If given permission to observe, I would do so. Unsurprisingly, there was really no problem from the Imam's point of view. At both of the men's mosques in the neighborhood, I was welcomed to stand at the door of the prayer hall and observe, provided I didn't make noise or cause a scene. My observations went down without a hitch. Though the ceremony was hardly different in either location, I felt like I needed to visit each in order to truly get a representation of the community. Before long, though, another hurdle presented itself: how to approach observations at the neighborhood's women's mosque.
As I wrote previously, Jinan is one of the few places I've ever been in China, where the core Hui neighborhood also includes a women's mosque, wherein clergy, congregation and staff are all women. As I attempted to get a grasp on the role of faith as an cultural and societal institution at the center of the community, I kept returning to this nagging feeling: I needed to observe prayers at the women's mosque, and I was not certain if this was even something I could realistically do. Worship in the Islamic community is China is strictly gender-segregated (I know that this is the case all over the world, as well, but as a respondent remarked in an interview, Chinese Muslims are perhaps more dogmatic than even their Middle Eastern counterparts in this respect). In asking to observe the service, I was potentially breaking two taboos: 1) I was a non-believer entering a sacred space, and 2) I was man entering a space that was exclusively reserved for women. It felt like a lot to ask. For a while, I merely avoided the subject, thinking that I woudl deal with it at a later date. Eventually, however, I realized that I was running out of time in Jinan, and I couldn't delay any longer.
So one Wednesday afternoon, I rolled up to the women's mosque, and found the head Imam and several of the other junior Imams that I'd met on previous visits. Politely, I explained that I'd been doing observations of the Jumu'ah at all of the other mosques in town, and felt that my observations were incomplete because they were missing the very important perspective of the women's mosque. If it wouldn't be inappropriate, I said, I'd love to have the chance to do the same at the women's mosque. I braced myself for a "No." To my pleasant surprise, without hesitation, the head Imam agreed. "Sure," she said. "That's not a problem at all. We start at 1:30, so just come by and you can watch from the back." Feeling surprised, but pleased, I left thinking that maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all.
On Friday, I intended to arrive early. At 1:05pm, I strolled into the courtyard, only to find that everything was already underway. One of the junior Imams who I had met before waved to me as I walked up the steps in front of the main prayer hall.
"They're giving the wa'erzi (瓦尔兹, known in Arabic as the wa'za, a sermon or lecture given by the imam before prayers). They'll start praying shortly. Why don't you wait over here where you can sit down and warm up a little bit?" she told me, as she escorted me to a sideroom, and handed me a cup of tea. Facing the open door, I sat and watched patiently as attendees filed into the courtyard. Some hurriedly pulled their hijab out of their handbags or coat-pockets and pulled them over their heads as they kicked off their shoes before entering the main hall. Other women walked up casually and chatted with the mosque's facilities manager, who stood by the collection box, handing out information about the building's upkeep costs to attendees. After a few minutes of looking on like this from a distance, I realized that sitting in the side room was offering me very little in the way of explanatory leverage or worthwhile observation. It would be much better, I decided, to stand in the courtyard and wait. At least there, I reasoned, I could get a better view of who was coming and going, and perhaps even start a conversation or two as people entered. It might, I reasoned, be marginally more productive than sitting around by myself.
Confident in my decision, I wandered out of the room to stand with the women I'd met previously. Upon seeing me, the junior imam smiled, and motioning toward the door of the main hall, remarked "Go ahead, you should go on in." Women continued to walk into the main hall, but I remained rooted to the spot. Suddenly, I became self-conscious. This was what I wanted. I needed to be able to step inside. But all the while I couldn't help feeling a twinge of apprehension. The idea that I might somehow be treading on culturally ambiguous ground made me hesitant to just walk in to the prayer hall. The junior imam appeared to notice this.
"It's really not a problem," she told me. "Go on in. You want to be able to watch right?"
"Well, yes, but I really don't want to cause a stir. If I'm supposed to go in-"
"Don't worry. It's really OK," She assured me again.
"Well..." I began to take off my shoes, hoping to somehow be given some sort of stronger assurances.
An older woman wearing a black headscarf was passing by at this moment, and the imam stopped her as she went past, imploring her to escort me in.
"Auntie," she said to the woman, "Would you take our American scholar friend into the prayer hall? He's here to observe the Jumu'ah. He spoke the head imam about it."
Auntie looked a bit confused, but nonetheless agreed. She moved past me toward the door, motioning for me to follow her.
"Come on," she said, motioning more insistently.
For a moment I hesitated, but this seemed to be as iron-clad a show of support as I was likely to get. Still feeling strange about it, I followed Auntie into the main prayer hall. She opened the door and drew back the padded insulation curtains designed to keep heat in during the winter, and ushered me through.
"You can stand back here," she said, motioning toward the back. Trying to remain casual, I stood toward the back, taking in the scene. There were perhaps 45 women assembled in the hall, seated on the floor. Most of the were middle aged or older. They formed no more than three complete rows at the front of the hall. Most of the hall was empty. They wore headscarves of various colors, many in pastel hues: lavendar, rose, robin's egg blue, beige. The imam in charge of delivering the wa'erzi for the day stood at the podium, already well into her remarks for the day. She did not break focus at my entrance, but continued to read from the sheet of paper in front of her. Others, however, did take notice. I saw more than a few heads turn, alerted to the fact that this foreign man had entered a women's mosque. Less than a minute passed. From the side of the room, I saw a middle-aged woman wearing a multicolored hijab approach me. "Oh, no... What's this?" I thought to myself.
In a quiet, very polite voice, the kind one uses when addressing someone who appears confused, she said to me, "The men's mosque is next door."
"Oh, no," I began to whisper to her, quietly, not entirely sure what I needed to say to explain myself. I chose to appeal to authority. "I'm just a student. I spoke to the Imam..."
She motioned toward the courtyard in a way that suggested she didn't wish to further disturb the lesson. I followed her out to the courtyard, where she repeated herself.
"I think you must be looking for the men's mosque. It's next door," she said, and then looking around, she called out, "Can someone take him over to the men's mosque?"
Once again I tried to explain myself, but, fortunately, the junior imam came to my rescue. Seeing my awkward predicament, she said to the woman, "He's not here to pray. He's an American student. He's here to observe the prayers for his research. He got permission from the head imam."
At this, the woman's face changed. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know," she told me.
"No, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to cause a disruption."
"Oh, not at all," she said, before sneaking back into the hall to catch the rest of the wa'erzi.
The manager turned to me, and suggested, "Maybe you can just wait out here, and then when the prayers begin you can watch in from the back." I agreed. We stood together for a while, the imam, the manager and I, and discussed the mosque. Was today's crowd typical in size? Would many more show up today? Does the cold weather influence how many people attend? How do the imams decide who gets to deliver the wa'erzi? Our conversation is polite, and informative. And throughout I get a slightly more complete sense of what the community is like. If nothing else, I tell myself, this information is useful for the project. We continue on like this for five or ten minutes. Suddenly, hearing some commotion from inside the room, and glancing at her watch, the imam said to me, "Oh, they've started the prayers."
With her assent, I cracked the door open, and peeked through the heavy curtains. Sure enough, the women had begun the ceremony. The head imam recited the ritual in Arabic as the rest of those assembled bowed. I watched for a few minutes. The ritual seemed no different from what I observed at the men's mosques in the neighborhood. As I watched, I tried to take in small details about the rhythm of the prayer, the appearance of the room, the placement of the women in attendance. However, all of this attention suddenly shattered as a voice from behind me in the courtyard shouted out angrily.
"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
I pulled my head out from the curtains to find a small, older woman standing in the middle of the courtyard, wearing a blue work apron. Unlike the women in the hall her head was uncovered. She wandered toward the steps continuing to shout. In my startled confusion, I missed most of what she said, but I did manage to catch what seemed to be the crucial phrase:
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
In that moment, I understood what was going on. What I had feared would happen was, in fact, happening: the presence of a foreign, non-Muslim, man was causing a bit too much of a stir. Once again, the mosque's manager tried to explain my presence. This time, however, it seemed to be met with less acceptance. The old woman continued to argue. In the cacophony, I couldn't make out what she said, but she eventually wandered back out into the street outside the mosque, grumbling to herself. I noted that she, herself, appeared to have no intention of attending prayers, and felt this was curious. The mosque's facilities manager walked over to me, apologizing.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Some of these old ladies... they're just a little severe."
"It's OK," I said. "I think I should probably be going." I had decided that my presence was in fact potentially making my observations untenable. In the midst of such commotion, I couldn't be sure that what I was seeing wasn't somehow being altered by the sheer fact of my own presence. In this case, I opted to leave. Despite the manager's insistence that it was OK, and I shouldn't feel bad, I politely excused myself and looked for a place away from the mosque to jot down some notes about what I had seen.
What lessons does this encounter offer? I think there are several things worth mentioning.
For one thing, my visit ilustrates a pretty important aspect about the nature of qualitative data. As much as field researchers might like to pretend that they can truly be detached, objective observers, the "fly-on-the-wall" style of observation is probably impossible to pull off. The presence of an outsider clearly alters the dynamics of social interaction. When a researcher is so very obviously an outsider (as in my case) the impact is felt more keenly. We who do field research ought to remember, no matter how much we'd like to believe that our presence doesn't effect the things we observe, we need to admit that it unmistakably does.
Further, its important to remember that fieldwork, by its very nature risks this kind of awkward discomfort. As I sat in the sideroom, I was shielded from the awkwardness of trying to observe Jumu'ah prayers as a very clear "other." However, from that vantage point, I was also unable to see anything of real significance to my research. To a certain degree, we need to remember as field researchers, that, when we lose those elements of observation that make us slightly uncomfortable, we also tend to lose any perspective that would brign real insight at all.
And yet, the line between observing in a respectful way, and one that breaches decorum, or breaks taboos is a very fine one. Walking on this line is the real work of ethnography. It is not easily done. Making sure to tread carefully is important, and doing so requires a lot of leg-work. The lesson here seems to be: don't go into ethnography blind. Researchers should strive to understand and anticipate context prior to trying to dive right in. Even this approach has limits: I had the mosque's explicit permission and blessing to be present at the prayer services, and numerous expressions of support from authorities. Still, my presence ultimately proved to be disruptive to the point where I felt I needed to excuse myself.
Which points to another point of difficulty: recognizing when to push ahead and when to leave well-enough alone. How do you decide whether or not to pull the plug on an observation? How do you know the observations you're making aren't being colored or influenced by your very presence? It's a hard call to make. Understanding, however, when to pull out of what seems like a fruitless observation is an important skill to hone. Again, it seems, there is no substitute for immersion within a particular context as a means of gaining this kind of insight. Here again, experience becomes the best possible teacher.
But there's one last point to be made here. Even experiences like this one should be treated as valuable data. Don't jump to conclude that nothing can be gained from observations like these. In fact, many of the obstacles which prevented me from getting more focused observations of the Jumu'ah prayers may have instead provided me with comparably valuable insight about the role played by religion in the Hui community. My inability to observe many aspects of the prayer service ended up revealing a lot about how member/other barriers are set within this community. In this case, I learned, that, principally, my gender-identity as male proved to be the most salient category with respect to the ritual. I was not assumed to be in the wrong place because I was non-Muslim, or non-Hui, but rather because I was not a woman. That ethnicity may be relegated behind gender in terms of salience in these moments reveals a lot about the relatinship between ethnicity and religion. More generally, my point is this: just because you don't get the data you'd hoped for in planning an observation doesn't not make the data useless. Rather, you may learn a lot in a completely unexpected manner.
To close, I think it's important to remember that these are the kinds of experiences that aren't easily simulated. In some senses, scholars just have to learn how to handle these situations as they come. But, this should not suggest that all ethnographic research is just made up on the fly. As in quantitative studies (which offer many standardized techniques for dealing with problematic or outlier data), a number of techniques exist for dealing with these kinds of awkward or difficult experiences. Though context may change the best strategies to adopt for coping with any given situation, having the right mindset about how approach these challenges will help researchers hone their instincts in the field. Ultimately, my conclusion is this: too often in qualitative projects, we only talk about the successes and tidy outcomes of our interviews and observations. The moments where the situation slips away from us, or where things take an unexpected turn, or where we fail to get the data we hope for are often excised from our narratives. We need to embrace talking about these moments. Why? Because if we don't we'll never really be able to effectively teach others how to do what we do. And we'll never truly be able to convey the ways in which qualitative research is sufficiently rigorous and valid for scientific inquiry. So, let's talk about the awkward moments. Let's talk about how we make and then deal with mistakes. That's the way we end up moving forward.