The weather
was not so good. It was snowing and windy. I reached the Conestoga Mall
challenging the harsh snowfall. I got off the bus entered the mall. I felt
the sudden warmth as if somebody threw me in a desert from the icy mountain. I
walked by the clothing outlets that were offering heavy discounts. Stores like
“H & M” and “Suzy” offered 50 percent sales for the family day. Other
stores had sales too. I was tempted to step in and had an interpersonal
conflict. Shall I drop in now? I convinced myself that I had a purpose to be
there in the mall. It was already 2.05 pm and I wanted to be in my research
zone while people were still coming to eat.
I
then headed to the food court where I expected a big cultural diversity for my
ethnographic observation. With more diversity come multiple perspectives
for observation. I choose to be in food court in mall because I had the
assumption that with food being served from all over the world, people from
different parts of the world would stop over and I could watch their
activities. I secured a seat for myself in the corner table in the food court
in the mall. Each table had a setting for four people with four light wooden
chairs. There were food stalls from different parts of the world including but
not limited to Thailand, China, Japan, India, Middle East, Italy.This is
what means by globalization as food from any parts of the world was available.
I headed to Thai food stall and ordered Tom Yum soup after queuing up for few minutes. I deserved that hot soup after surviving the snow outside. The young
girl who took my order looked like a native Thai. I went back to my table. In
front of my table was a young man in his early thirties busy with his phone,
not talking but texting or surfing. He was waiting for his food to arrive as a
lady standing in front of the same Thai food where I just bought my soup was
paying for their order. She probably was his wife and normally wives
wait and men order food but here the man was sitting. I could notice that my cultural bias was
being dragged in. The couple looked like South Asians probably Indian,
Bangladeshi or Pakistani. The woman had long black hair and was wearing a
bright red jacket. She looked in her early thirties. The man was wearing a cap
with a maple leaf on it and had spectacles on. She came back to the table to
join her husband. Husband I say, but this was still my guess]. I could
over hear them and now I confirmed that they are either from India or Pakistan
as I could understand that man asking her “Is that all our order and have you
paid”? They spoke either Urdu or Hindi which is so similar that I can
hardly make a distinction. Urdu is more complicated for me than Hindi though. The
women only nodded. The man was still playing with his phone. They started to
eat their food and amazingly the woman also started playing with her mobile phone
while they were eating. They were hardly talking to each other or even looking
at each other but so concerned on what they were doing in mobile. It
looked like they were not a couple but two strangers forced to share a table
for a while. It even reminded me of Putnam’s bowling alone and degrading social
capital. Is mobile phone playing a negative role in social capital building?
Next
my eyes fell upon a little white boy wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with the
pictures of cars on them. Boys from the very young age are inclined
towards cars and mechanical world who had a clue that I was jotting down
something in my note book. He was probably of 8 or 9 years old. While I
was also looking to their table from time to time (though with caution not to
be noticed) this boy figured out I was looking at their table. He was
curious perhaps because I was the only one in the entire food court who was
also writing something while eating.I do not have any good sense of
distinguishing white people for their geographic origin and he was speaking
English to his parents so I guessed this little boy was a Canadian. However,
in this melting pot culture he could be from any origin. My eyes again spotted
the same South Asian couple who were by now ready to leave the table. The
husband was carrying a large recyclable environmental friendly bag with three
arrows of reduce, reuse and recycle. It looks like he is an environment
conscious person who has understood that the struggle between the human and
resources is not inviting a good future for mankind. Coincidently, when they
left I could see big screen in the mall was projecting the environment news.
One of them said “Moose crashes somewhere in Winnipeg”. I related the
news to larger scale human and nature conflict. The other news scrolled so fast
that I could not even read them well but could make a sense that they were
talking about carbon credits.
The
food court was not overtly busy as it was already a late hour for lunch. The
table left by the South Asian couple was occupied by a family with two kids.
Both the parents looked very young and particularly for the mother I would not
guess her age to be above mid twenties. They spoke their own language.
They could be the Chinese, Korean or other East Asians. I can understand some
Japanese language so rejected the possibility of them being Japanese. The man was
wearing the black sweater and moved to the Chinese food stall and brought some noodles
and rice. The rice looked glossy and sticky. He also picked some chopsticks. As
I looked at him walking back to his family seat, an old disabled man was helped
by a young woman in his wheel chair and he found a seat far away from the
corner seat I had booked for me. [S.R.: Disabled people get a good facility and
care in this country; my country still is engulfed with the stereotypes for
disabled population] In the table the young father started feeding one of the
boys while mother started feeding the younger one. Division of labor is
a key for avoiding conflict and may be this is the reason the family looks
happy. The younger child was hardly 2 years old while the older one could be 5
or 6. The couple laughed and talked a lot in their own language. They
were loud enough to be heard but made no sense as I would not understand them
to take notes of anything that would be interesting for me.
There
was still some movement going on in the food court. People kept walking through
while some stopped to buy some food. A group of four young boys headed first to
“Subway” stopped for a while, discussed a bit and headed to “Tim Hortins” and
moved back to “Subway” again. I was thinking people find it difficult to
build consensus on what to eat especially when they are in bigger groups or
unless they have it in their mind from before. I observed that people who came
to the food court had a dilemma on which stall to go for. However, I could
notice the longest queue either in the Thai food stall or in the Tim Horton’s. Thai food and Tim Horton’s had a good luck that day and was doing great business.One of the boys in this group even noticed that I was observing them. He gave
me a double look and I forced my eyes to my note book so that he would be
convinced that I was busy with my own stuffs.
The
cleaning staff of the mall was moving from one table to other which was the
part of her job. She is not concerned like me who moves in and out and
who does what. She is looking for tables to be cleaned. She approached my
table and smiled and as I was still there she didn’t wipe off my station. She wiped
the other table next to me and while she did that I could see her wrinkled
hands but she had no rings on her fingers. She was dressed up in the mall’s cleaning
uniform and apron. She also had a cap on. It looked like she has seen over
sixty springs of life. I felt good to see that people in late years of
life are still working and living an independent life which is an indicator of
a strong economic state. Suddenly some music started to play in the mall. The
song was not familiar to me so I could not catch lyrics. A man with his arms
tattooed with flowery prints made an entry to the food court with a girl. I
could see that the girl had pierced her lower lips and the eye brows. I
think it will be very painful to get tattoo and pierce done and would not this
look bit awkward as people grow older?The man had a shoulder length hair with
crocodile glasses resting on his head and the girl’s hair shorter than his was
dyed to dark red. They were probably both in their early twenties. They found a
place to sit, few tables away from mine and were drinking coke that they had in
their hands from before they entered the food court. They sat in the table next
to a woman who was bit obese. I also noticed many other obese people moving in
and out of the food court. Obesity was a marked phenomenon during the
entire period I was there. A good number of young people looked over weight and
I was wondering if obesity is becoming a big problem in the country. I was
surprised that during my observation, I could not see any African people coming
in the food court. The tattooed boy and the girl did not buy any food but
walked towards the rest rooms. The girl went inside while the boy was waiting
for her outside and was holding her pink colored purse. A man in my
country would be reluctant waiting for a woman outside washroom and holding her
purse. I was glad to see a supportive man there.
