01
This is my second informant. Before coming to London he had gained a Bachelor degree at Beijing of Television. Now he is at the first year of undergraduate on Footwear Design, which he is hugely enthusiastic about.
Below is his Instagram account. Photos are in the same order as in Instagram.
Have a look and click the arrow on the right to view all his posts:
(It may take some time before Instagram feed appears. It’s slightly faster with Safari)
02
Similarly, I ask him if he can use some words to describe his “relationship with London” or “how he thinks of his life here”, he gave me three words almost without hesitation: creative, fulfilled and free. To explain that, he told me he loved this city for its multi-culture, arts and people with diversified background. It's worth mentioning that his fulfilled feeling was not just from his works at school, but also because he did a quite well paid part-time job every weekend that he could support himself financially.
What’s interesting is that though he spent 2days working every week, there’s no posts about this part of his life on Instagram. We can see the content of his account are mostly about his design and doesn’t have many mundane details from daily life. Notably, his account is very sophisticated and “well oragnised”(his words) as he posted three pictures at one time and used a white frame of every post. He told me what he wanted to present is an image of an art student and an account which might be examined by his employer in the future.
For the same reason I mentioned on the previous page, I also suggested him to pick the “most representative” posts as the epitome for his life in London. He told me that he believed the layout of his posts was an important part of his life. So it should be included.
Click the square button to hear his explanation.
On Saturday 18th March，I spent three hours doing participant observation with him in the work and on his way back home after work, which was an important part of his life but not presented on his account. The pictures of my field notes are as below.
(1)
When I met him at Harrods department store, where he worked, he was in the uniform. He worked as a shoes salesman for a luxury brand. He stood straight up in the store with a professional smile on his face. He told me he had stood for 7hours and there was one hour to go before he finished at 9pm. When I got there the store was empty, except him and his colleague. He told me his work wasn’t very busy and he spent most time standing or tidying up shoes. A woman went into the store. When he approached her and asker her if she needed any help she said she was just browsing. The woman left after a while.
Soon it’s nearly 9pm. He looked around store and checked all the shoes on the shelves. He checked very carefully and told me He didn’t feel tired because this job enabled him to learn more about his major and was not energy-consuming.
03
(2)
At 9 o’clock, he told me to go downstairs and wait for him outside the building, because he had to go out from staff exit. When we met again outside, he wasn’t wearing the leather shoes. Instead he had put sneakers and a denim jacket on.
We walked towards tube station with all the other people (mostly employees from Harrods). It was spacious and bright inside building but dark and noisy on the street. I asked him if he felt uncomfortable about the contrast. He told me not really because he had got used to it. He also explained to me why his work life wasn’t on his Instagram account. “My work is just work. I like it because it’s related to my major and help me make a living. But this has little to do with my design. I only want to present my design work or photography, which show my taste and my skills.”
