Ni Hao!

Greetings from a very very cold Beijing. Face have been working on an extremely interesting ethnography and filming project for the past few months, culminating in a tour of Beijing and Sao Paolo where we’ve been hanging out in people’s homes and professionally filming them to bring them to life. All very exciting stuff, and a truly illuminating experience.

Ethnography has been an approach utilized within qualitative research for a long time now. In market research terms, when we talk ethnography, we’re not talking true, academic methods, where the researcher may spend weeks, months or even longer with their participants. More often than not, we don’t have the time or the project scope to undertake such extended periods of observation. However, the principle of ethnography is still at the heart of this method in qualitative research – by spending time observing our participants’ environments, we ultimately uncover a larger number of richer insights about our target. From seeing how peoples homes are decorated, to how they like to hang out with their friends, we get the chance to really get under the skin of people, and that should really be the ultimate aim of any form of qualitative research.

This project has been a brilliant example of when ethnography proves so rich and eye-opening. Whilst we’ve only scratched the surface of understanding what Beijing,and Beijingers are all about, we’ve got a lot closer than we would do by watching people talk from behind the mirror. From spending time in peoples houses, I’ve come to learn a myriad of things, from the fact that a 10 square metre hudong can sell for the equivalent of £600,000 because of location and “cool factor”, to understanding just how much Chinese people love small dogs. Along the way, I’ve also come to realize just how proud Beijingers are of coming from Beijing and of their identity as cultured, informed people who love to talk about politics and the weighty issues of the world.

All of this insight and more, has reinforced our belief that being able to carry out ethnography is a true privilege for anyone interested in finding out more about any country they may find themselves in. Next stop, Sao Paolo. Amidst the caipirinhas and sunshine, we look forward to finding out more about how Brazilians tick.

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