As a history student, an area of inquiry that has always intrigued me is my own family history. In my attempt to gain greater insight and understanding of my family’s past, particularly as it also applies to Chinese immigrants in early day Singapore, I had decided to use the life history approach, focusing on the migrant experience and religious practices of my Ah Ma (an affectionate Hokkien term for grandmother), a Chinese woman from Fujian province, China, who had immigrated to Singapore in 1935.

Many questions remained for me about my Ah Ma. Although I used to stay with her when I was younger, I still knew little about her past. Therefore, I wondered: What was her family like back in China? Why did she leave her homeland? Why and how did she come to Singapore? What was her World War II experience? (And as I am very interested in religious history), what were some of her religious beliefs and practices?

It was a wonderful experience interviewing my Ah Ma and finding many of the answers to those questions. What emerged from this research was a short article entitled “Ah Ma and her Beliefs: The Migrant Experience and Religious Practices of a Chinese Immigrant Woman in Twentieth Century Singapore”.[ii] For now, I would just like to share some of the methodological issues and problems that I faced when interviewing Ah Ma and in my quest to find out more about my family’s past.

In any interview, it is always useful for a researcher to understand and speak the language of his or her respondents. As such, knowing and speaking my Ah Ma’s dialect – Hokkien in this case – is an advantage in my research. Nevertheless, it was still a major challenge to prepare my interview questions in English and then translating them to Hokkien. For example, one of my interview questions was “What are some of the places of worship that you visit?” It took me quite awhile to translate terms like “places of worship” into Hokkien. In the end, I decided to rephrase my question to something that is more familiar to Ah Ma: “Li ki toh lor bai sin? (Literally translating into: Where did you go to pray to god?)” She immediately understood my question and provided me with much information on the places of worships in 1930s and 1940s Singapore.

The interviewer also has to be empathetic and patient in conducting interviews with grandparents. Sometimes, grandparents can be quite lor soh (talkative) and have decidedly short attention spans, e.g. not answering the interview questions directly. This was also the case when I conducted the interview. Ah Ma sometimes digressed from the interview and started telling me things that were rather irrelevant to the interview questions, for instance going on and on about her favorite Taiwanese drama on Channel 8 in response to a specific question. Whenever she does that, I had to try to redirect her attention back to the interview question by re-asking the same question several times but in different ways.

In addition, because Ah Ma has some difficulty in hearing, she was sometime unable to hear me properly and of course ended up misinterpreting my questions. Hence, I had to repeat my questions a little louder (but of course not too loud) to ensure that she was aware of what I was asking for. While it could be rather tedious and tiring to repeat the same questions over and over again, the process did help me to relate and empathize better with Ah Ma, something that perhaps would not have be possible if I had not conducted the interview. Our grandparents have plenty of stories and experiences to share with us. The question then is whether we have the patience to listen to them?

Another important issue to take note of is to clarify the meaning of vague or unfamiliar terms. When conducting interviews, respondents may sometimes employ names and terms familiar only to them to describe certain events or places. It is important not to make assumptions and jump to conclusions, and to immediately clarify such terms with the respondent.

For instance, my Ah Ma told me that during her younger days, she used to work in a farm in Hai Lam Swa 海南山. Not knowing where is Hai Lam Swa, I initially thought that it sounded pretty much like a place in Chinatown. After clarifying with Ah Ma, Hai Lam Swa actually refers to a place in present-day Bishan. Therefore, it is essential to clarify the meaning of vague and unfamiliar terms, and this has saved me from making embarrassing blunders in my research.

Finally, it is important to rely upon information provided by other members of the family as a technique to assess the reliability of my Ah Ma’s account. Besides interviewing her, I also conducted an interview with my mother to check and recheck for possible discrepancies, and at the same time elicit information that further enriched Ah Ma’s story. Ah Ma’s religious beliefs and practices was one area where I used this technique quite often. Because my mother often followed Ah Ma to temples and took part in the religious rituals, she was able to provide much information to supplement Ah Ma’s account. This greatly helped me to achieve a better understanding of what my Ah Ma had told me earlier.

Conducting interviews with grandparents can be an enriching, enjoyable, and at times, a very challenging research experience. They often have lots of stories and hidden insights that they would like to share, but are frequently unable to find people interested or patient enough to listen to them.

In delving into my family’s past, I not only learn more about them, but also my place within the family and my relationship with them. I feel a lot closer to them than before and can even perceive certain threads of continuity. As a student of history, I feel that it is a great pity and loss if we do not take the time or bother to know our own family history. Writing my family history has now become a new life long project for me.

The author graduates in July 2007 with a BA (Hons) in history, from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He has been awarded the NUS Research Scholarship to pursue his MA degree in history.

[i] I am grateful to my Ah Ma for her readiness and openness in answering my endless queries. Needless to say, any shortcoming remains my sole responsibility.

[ii] Chia Meng Tat Jack, “Ah Ma and her Beliefs: The Migrant Experience and Religious Practices of a Chinese Immigrant Woman in Twentieth Century Singapore,” in Marburg Journal of Religion 12, 1 (May 2007), http://web.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/mjr/pdf/2007/chia2007.pdf (accessed 14 May 2007).