After conducting a lot of interviews in late December, Jan, February, and early March, I became despondent when I didn’t really find anything new or juicy. A lot of the information I was finding seemed like it could have come from research books on the topic of migrant workers. A lot of the stories were the same – ‘been here for 8 years, life sucks, but I do it because I can earn more money… Things are getting better over time…’

Recently, I’ve started doing these interviews in earnest again. Previously, I had been giving out bottles of water, and / or small payments to compensate people for their time. Instead I now use: cigarettes. Though always aware of the ubiquitous nature cigarettes play in social interactions (among men), I had avoided using them due to some ingrained yuppie aversion to the negative health effects of smoking. I should have been using them all along – they open people up very quickly – or rather, put people at ease, and make the conversation seem much more natural. So, if you’re doing any sort of social research in China, always carry cigarettes around, and give them out liberally.

Thinking more generally about China, recently, the longer I stay here the more I realize how inaccessible ‘China’ as an entity is purely due to its size. China’s floating population is larger than most national populations. Heck, China’s total population’s margin of error is larger than most national populations. China’s recent experience, in the last several decades, is so unique that it’s impossible to find any simplifying historical analogies that do justice to the complexity of reality.

So, how to address it, from either a professional or academic perspective? Limit your question(s), either in terms of scope or geography. Even the most insignificant issue will rapidly balloon into something inaccessible. This was a mistake I made at the beginning, and have only recently begun to refine.