PROFILE Transition and transformation AMSRS founding member and Fellow David Bottomley has conducted <strong>research</strong> in urban and rural China for more than 20 years. ‘ I am fortunate that my work takes me to interesting places,’ writes AMSRS Fellow David Bottomley in one of his annual Christmas letters to family and friends. Over the years, these Christmas letters have drawn heavily on the illustrated reports he prepares for clients after fieldwork excursions in China and Myanmar. Bottomley, who is founder of the Hong Kong company <strong>Asia</strong> Marketing Research Directions (AMRD), was based in Hong Kong from 1986 to 2008. One of his first <strong>research</strong> projects involved a taste test in a restaurant with snakes on the menu. The friends of the interviewers he employed were caught at the back door selling his imported beer taste samples. Over the past 25 years, Bottomley has seen China race through its industrial revolution. More recently, he has made bi-annual trips to China to oversee the China in Transition to a Market Economy study, which commenced in March 2000 and wound up in the middle of last year having conducted about 50,000 face-to-face interviews in every province of China, other than Tibet. During his visits to China he has accompanied interviewers into many homes. These trips were often undertaken to pre-test questionnaires or obtain a snapshot impression of the fieldwork. ‘Fieldwork supervision and checking needs to be far more intensive and pre-planning in the office is far more critical in <strong>Asia</strong> than in countries where market <strong>research</strong> is well-established,’ he wrote in the October 2001 edition of Research News. Bottomley’s illustrated reports on these fieldwork trips – in many ways, an exegesis on the main <strong>research</strong> report - document gradual improvements in the standard of living in <strong>region</strong>al and rural China. They’re colourful reports that paint a vivid picture of what it’s like living in China and are scattered with amusing anecdotes about the challenges for <strong>research</strong>ers – as Bottomley notes, ‘there are always little adventures in fieldwork’. Over a series of reports, his observations about the improved standard of living have included better and brighter light fittings, pictures on the walls, flat renovations and apartment size – along with the speed and comfort of China’s rail system. One thing that hasn’t improved, much to Bottomley’s chagrin, is the pollution. Invariably his reports end with a note of relief that he’s returned to the clean air and blue skies of Hong Kong. Bottomley made a point of accompanying interviewers during the entire fieldwork experi- David Bottomley tries his hand at hawking in Taunggyi market, Myanmar ence. He would put many younger <strong>research</strong>ers to shame, climbing the stairs (or risking the ride in a dubious lift) to the top of multi-storey apartment buildings along with the interviewers, as he has always insisted that they commence their door knocking for pre-planned calls on the top level of the building. ‘Without that instruction,’ Bottomley says, ‘Interviewers might get too many ground and lower level flats.’ He writes with humility in his 2009 report, ‘Usually, on these trips, I walk up and down with the interviewers but lazy from the previous day’s travel, I let the interviewers do all the climbing until they obtained an interview. Then they rang me, and I went up to attend the interview.’ He notes in his reports other sampling challenges, such as ‘what is a household when four dwellings are adjacent and share a courtyard’ In Myanmar, sampling challenges have been compounded by the fact that precise population figures remain uncertain. The most recent government census was conducted back in 1983 and the government places the growth rate at 2.02 per cent to give a current estimate of 57.5 million, but <strong>research</strong>ers and business people have their own estimates. On the other hand, Bottomley notes where data are available for ‘committee districts’ in Chinese cities, it provides the penultimate stratum for his household sampling procedure. ‘A functional definition of a village in China is that it contains friendly people, willing to help find those who live in the homes our local supervisors have pre-selected, that interviews seldom start with less than eight people present, perhaps double that number, and that “grandpa” [AKA Bottomley] gets a baby placed in his arms. The latter is hazardous. Diapers/nappies are not known in such places. Babies wear pants split on the backside. I like babies but I don’t trust their inner controls. So far, over the years, no accidents – but I limit my exposure to about five minutes!’ He notes that during one interview in 2009, student characters kept popping in and out of the four doors off the central lounge area ‘like an old fashioned three-act comedy’. In stark contrast to nursing infants and feigning disinterest in curious neighbours, over the years Bottomley’s associates have had to diplomatically negotiate their way through Chinese censorship controls to get authorisation for his studies. However, it is 10 years since he had any interviewers arrested for asking suspicious questions about such things as employment. Bottomley and his team have sometimes succeeded in getting Chinese communities to participate in their surveys by saying, ‘we’re not government, we’re friends!’ In between trips to China and Myanmar over the past couple of years, Bottomley (who is now 86) has resumed the post-graduate studies he first undertook back in 1948 after which he was ‘captured into market <strong>research</strong> for 60-odd years’. He completed a second Masters at Melbourne University in 2009. He is uncertain if he might complete his PhD in the history of science education at Curtin University’s Science, Mathematics and Education Centre before he turns 90. ‘I’m enraptured with being an historical detective. History is full of surmises and contradictions to unravel. Life’s fun!’ 8 Research News March 2011
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