CHAPTER 8

GRIDS AND FRAME TASKS

by Hugh M. Lewis

Two sets of five open ended questions were also asked. These questions basically elicited conceptual domains over the central topics they addressed--namely Thai women, Singapore, Japanese, Malaysian Products, AID's, Chinese, Whites, Blacks, Malays and Indians. They provide insight into how complex concepts such as these may be constructed and cohere across a cultural field. Traits and terms used to describe these concepts recur again and again throughout the elicitations with great frequency. No single concept is monotypic--each spans a range of values, images, experiences, beliefs which go into their construction. Neither do they exist in isolation from one another or from other domains of knowledge.

The first set of questions (N = 120) were the following:

What do you think about Thai women?

What do you think about Singapore?

What do you think about the Japanese?

Wht do you think about things made in Malaysia?

What do you think about the AID's problem in Malaysia?

Responses to the first question show that the most frequent term to describe Thai women was "dark" (16.9%), "prostitutes" (13.7%), "like Malay" (8%), "same as Chinese" (8%), "some good/some bad" (8%), "sexy" (2.4%). Other salient associations are "some beautiful, some not", cheap, dirty, not good, humorous, "whatever they do can't be helped because of their poor circumstances", fair complexion, good, daring, decent, discriminated against, friendly, average, different, more free. The concepts of darkness, "like Malay", and "prostitute" and dirty, sexy, were closely related, while "fair" and "same like Chinese" were also closely associated. "They follow everyone, go with all men, cannot be trusted. If marry a Thai prostitute she will later open the back door and find other men." On other hand, "A friend is married to an ex-Thai prostitute and they have two children. She is a good and decent woman." 17.7 % said they didn't know any Thia and 7.25% said they had never been to Thailand.

Responses to the second question show the most frequent associations to "Singapore" were "clean" (22.58%), "good" (19.35%),"strict" (9.67%), "beautiful"(6.45%), "nice" and "developed" (5.64%). Other salient associations were peaceful, scenery, good and bad, rights or fairness, developed or modern, prosperous, different from Malaysia, proud, better than Malaysia, superior in attitude or "talk down" to others. There were close associations between concepts of strictness, goodness, cleanliness and beautifulness. Overall, attitudes about Singapore were positive, such as "Good, like when the Singaporean Government flogged the American boy for vandalism." 15.3% had never been to Singapore, and 11.29% didn't know or had forgotten what it was like.

The most frequent association to the concept of the "Japanese" were "fairness (complexion, 11.29%), shortness of stature (13.71%), manners (8.9%), and intelligence (8.9%). Other associations were fast working, better than others, the war, modern, good, fat, same as Chinese, cruel, developing. Fairness, shortness, smartness and hardworking are associated. "Men always knock against women, just bow their head and knock against them. They came in a boat and took women away." "Japs and Koreans are '584.' At night they pass you and touch you on the hand and piss in the water. People here beat them worse when they are drunk. Very gili." An older women related her war experiences as a young 16 year old girl. "When younger Japs in wrong. It was very difficult. They killed a lot of people, raped a lot of girls. Took them up to the hills out of the city and beat them up. People ran and hid in the caves. Could hear their boots stomping. They gang raped them until they couldn't walk." 16.12% didn't know and 5.6% had never seen any Japanese before.

The concept of "Malaysian made products" had fewer overall elicitations than the other concepts, and was mostly associated with "good" (21.78%), "O.K." (16.9%), "imports better than" (9.67%), "not good" (9.67%), "good and bad" and "inferior", (9.67%). Other salient associations were "best", "lose", "depends", "average", "break down", "Proton", convenience, affordable, progress or development, in Japanese, English.9.67% didn't know.

The concept of "AID's" was most associated with "in Malaysia" (46.77%), "not many cases" (33.87%), "a lot of cases" (12.9%). Other salient categories were "dangerous/frightening" (9.67%), "increasing" (9.67%), as well as "heard but never seen", "mostly Overseas', Thailand, Newspapers, contagious, incurable, "no problem in Malaysia", "government control", "deserve it", "bad", "government quarantine". 88.7% didn't know, and there was a sense that this lack of understanding was serious and genuine. A dialogue with some children of the Jetty reveals their lack of awareness of the disease "Due to smoking, drugs also have. If you sit close to a person who also has it give it to you." "No, girl to girl or boy to boy." "No, go out with strangers, they put drug into something and let us eat it and get it. Didn't learn about it in school. On T.V., young man got it with a prostitute." "No, T.V. shows a commercial with drug addict without drugs, climbing up the steps, then a skeleton."

The second set of questions were the following (N=30):

What do you think about Chinese people?

What do you think about White people?

What do you think about Black people?

What do you think about Malays?

What do you think about Indians?

Most associated with "Chinese" are "hardworking" (33.3%), "selfish" (23.3%), "intelligent", "unpunctual", "stingy", "face", "talkative" (13.3%), other associations are "money faced", "good", "greedy".

Most associated with "Whites" are "friendly" (20%), "liberal" and "liberated" (16.67% each). Other associations are adventurousness, tall, enjoy self, "different thinking", "great thinking", "easy going".

Most associated with "Blacks" are "poor" (40%) and "white teeth" (16.67%) . Other salient associations are "curly hair", "tall", "good in sports", "contempt by Whites".

Most associated with "Malays" are "lazy" (33.33%), "cooperative between themselves" (16.67%). Other associations are unsporting, selfish, government parades, hate, rich, follow the leader, dirty, proud, and easy going.

Most associated with "Indians" are "dirty" (23.3%), "poor" (16.67%) and "drinking" (16.67%). Other salient associations are "fakers", beautiful eyes, "smelly", religious, hardworking, "simple life".

It appears that linguistically structured symbolic framing tasks do elicit patterns of response comparable in many respects to the other kinds of tasks such as the inkblots and drawing tasks. To some extent, they involve projective filling in of cognitive content, with a similar symbolic process of "objectification" or "anthropomorphization" occuring which restructures this content. In these kinds of responses we can perhaps find the foundation of projective prejudices and of reference group stereotypes which are founded upon the repression of aspects of the self subsequent cast out in modified form onto others.

There were an assortment of other tasks that fell into the catch-all category of 'frames and grids,' and included several thematic apperceptive tasks, several kinds of sentence completion type tasks, and several grid used in giving ratings to various items along certain dimensions.

For the most part these tasks involved more linguistic-like frames similar to those above which involved more linguistic type responses and perhaps greater conceptual organization or reorganization of ambiguous frame stimuli on the page or in one's mind. The problem with these type of tasks was the very low response rate and very strong resistance in their completion. There appeared to be a number of difficulties in their design and administering--foremost perhaps was the difficulty of translation from English into Hokkien, which perhaps brings up a need to reassess the argument for linguistic relativity functioning at different syntactic and semantic levels.

It is interesting in this regard that one of the main and most consistent traits left off of the Children's human figure drawings were the ears, an expected item that occurs near the top of the most frequently found list. On the Jetty young children can be heard everyday cursing up and down some adult who tries to check their behavior. Houses are frequently crowded and unbearably noisy, and their is a background den of human noises that probably lasts past midnight each evening. At the same time, there is always a background lulling sound of the tide which washes in and out just a few feet below everyone's feet, day after day after day. Boats are constantly lapping in the water and the piles and pierings are continuously groaning and creaking. Young children sleep in rows of two or three bundled up in their net bags, suspended from a rope and a spring from the ceiling, beneath the cooling breeze of a humming fan. It is unknown what the implications of this may be, if any, especially in relation to these verbal-linguistic type symbolic framing tasks, but it would be worth future exploration.

But there was also a basic problem of inherent resistance and seeming aversion to these types of tasks on the part of most of the Jetty Chinese. Is it possible that these kinds of frames involved a kind of structured verbal and conceptual response pattern which was too alien to their characteristic world view that they were too difficult to complete? For many even some of the relatively simple rank order type tasks seemed burdensome. Some of the tasks, such as sentence completion frames, even when adapted to Chinese, were like pulling teeth.

Some of these tasks also clearly explored the boundaries of their worldview in a manner which they frequently found threatening. There was also a sense that statements they could make may be linked to their own names and identities with perhaps unknown consequences. This made the use of a tape recorder for several of the tasks designed to elicit spontaneous, tip of the tongue type oral responses, virtually impossible to use with anyone but less than a handful of people. On several occasions attempting to encourage completion of these relatively simple tasks (from an American's point of view) led to the characteristic "ingenuine" response which was hiding the truth and which was wasting everyone's time, and even at a point to a closure of a small group of people of the Jetty who had previously been quite open to being interviewed.

The net consequence is that there are about 20 to 25 different incomplete samples which are for the most part too small to do anything with, and yet which comprise some of the more interesting and insightful responses of all the tasks given. Only a couple will be treated here, mostly in passing.

The first is a set of grids which involved subjects rating on a scale of 0 to 3 different basic categories of familial members--father, mother, son, daughter, grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, husband, wife--in relation to one another according to certain basic statements such as "should punish", "should serve", "should give money to", etc.

It appears that in the category of sons (N = 11), there is very strong agreement sons should take care of fathers (90.9 %), answer to fathers (72.7%), obey fathers (81.8%), serve food to fathers (100%), give money to fathers (100%), pray after fathers (63.6%) and should not question fathers (54.54%). On the other hand, sons cannot punish or scold fathers (81.8% each) or be served food by fathers (54.54%). Being served food was the category showing greatest indifference (45.5%)

In relation to mothers, sons should take care of mothers (100%), serve food to mothers (100%), give money to mothers (100%), answer to and obey mothers (81.8%) pray after (63.6%) and should not question mothers (45.5%). On the other hand, sons cannot punish or scold mothers (81.8%) or be served food by mothers. (54.54%). Again the category of being served food by is shows the most ambivalence and indifference (45.5%)

It thus appears that the profile of the son's relationship along these basic dimensions to both parents is roughly the same, except that there is slightly stronger agreement about the relationship toward the mother than the father. This difference is showing in the son's relationship to the daughter. Sons should take care of daughters and pray before daughters (54.54%), and can punish and scold daughters (45.5%) but do not answer to daughters (54.54%), nor obey daughters (63.6%) nor serve food to daughters (45.5%). There is much greater ambivalence and indifference about the filial obligations of the son to the daughter compared to son's relationship to his parents, especially in the category of being served food by but also giving money to the daughter. There is greatest uncertainty in who should pray after whom between the son and the daughter.

Similar types of grids were constructed for the different familial roles, father, mother, daughter, uncle, aunt, etc. Mother's relationships to the father are quite different than the son's, having an obligation to take care of the father, and serve food to the father, but not necessarily to answer to or obey the father. It is strongly believed that mothers should not give money to fathers and should not punish fathers, though it appears they can scold them. The greatest indifference is in being served food by fathers, and praying after fathers, though indifference marks are the domains to a much greater degree than with the sons.

In relation to the son, the mother should take care of him and answer to the son, but should not obey, serve food to, give money to or pray after the son, and appears to have a right to question the son, punish and scold the son (91.67% each). Being served food by the son and praying after the son show the greatest ambivalence and indifference.

In relation to the daughter, the mother should take care of her (100%), punish and scold her, and question her, but should not answer to, serve food to, give money to the daughter. There is greater indifference in these relationships than in any others, especially in terms of who prays after whom, who serves food to whom, who obeys whom and who gives money to whom.

Fathers have the obligation to take care of, punish, scold, and question mothers, sons and daughters, but they should not pray after or answer to any except on occasion the mother. Giving money shows the greatest ambivalence across the spectrum, and though the entire spectrum of the fathers relationships is marked by greater ambivalence and uncertainty, it is not clearly marked by any salient indifference.

As far as the daughter is concerned (N = 17), it is clear that daughter's must take care of, answer to, obey, serve food to, give money to and should not question either mothers or fathers, with about equal strength (> 90%), and they cannot punish or scold or be served food by their parents (100%). There is almost no indifference or uncertainty about these relationships, but there is marked ambivalence especially in who should pray before whom. In relationship to the son, this profile changes a little bit with greater ambivalence and disagreement across the board, but still little indifference or uncertainty. Daughters should still take care of sons, but not as much, and they should pray after sons (64.7%) but they do not need to answer to sons, (52.94%), nor serve food to or give money to sons, and they can punish and scold sons, especially younger brothers and can be served food by sons.

In the obligation of children to grandparents (N =9), children should take care of and give money to them (100%), answer to, obey, serve food to and and cannot punish or scold and have no rights over grandparents (100%), and have few privileges over them. The greatest indifference is in who should pray after whom, or be served by whom or question whom, and who should be free from whom. These same relationships and salience carry over almost completely to the relationships between children and both categories of parents and godparents, though there is slightly greater indifference about children obeying their godparents than either their parents or grandparents.

Another set of tasks involved sentence completion, and from these small samples a couple of them proved quite interesting, especially one given to the children of the Jetty. Responses are presented in order of descending frequencies.

What I like best about school is? P.E. (77.8%), math, (22.2%), playing badminton, playing, talking with friends, crafts, Chinese studies, Malay studies, English, sweeping the floor, cleaning the blackboard, the library that gives knowledge, and the Malay teacher who is a joker.

When I grow up I want to be...a policeman (22.2%) who catches robbers and thieves, a nurse, soldier, fireman who saves people, hairdresser, beautician, printing like the brother, a writer working in a publishing company "because get to bring papers home to write with", a typist because "I like playing with typewriters" and a driver of alcoholic beverages.

My parents become angry when I... go out with friends (22.2%), go out and fight (22.2%), play around, steal things, gamble, beat my younger brother, don't do my homework, don't listen to them, go to the shopping mall with my friends, don't help with the housework, go to my friend's house, and go swimming.

Bad things are...smoking (55.6%), drugs and gambling (44.5%), fighting (22.2%), stealing, gangs, mixing with other bad people, quarreling and "bad words, nothing else."

The leader of my country... is intelligent (77.8%), favors Malays (66.7%), is good, takes shares of bribes, disfavors Penang and takes care of the country.

The world will be a better place when..."there are no wars" (33.3%),"they don't take young girls to sell" (22.2%), no fighting (22.2%), no drugs, "we don't throw trash everywhere", there is peace "and other countries don't invade us", no stealing, no gangs and no quarreling.

Children shouldn't...gamble (44.5%), smoke (33.3%), fight, scold, use foul words, "take mom's money to buy drugs", "take mother's money to treat friends", (22.2% each), "con mother's money", scratch, vandalize, but in when older people are talking, be bad, mix with gang members, play with fire, be truant, quarrel, scold teachers, use alcohol or drugs. "Teachers can hit. One hit three students, and we cut up the teacher's tires."

When I cross a street, I..."look carefully before crossing so that there are no cars" (55.6%), see both sides, (22.2%), go when there are no cars (22.2%), run across and be extra careful.

The following is a brief account given of the Jetty by a young teenage girl who has lived there all her life, in the same home in which her mother was born. She was my best "primary informant" and one day I gave her a blank piece of paper and told her to write me a story about the Jetty and her family. This is her story:

I'm the eldest in my family.

The sister whom I like the most is my first younger sister. She is a very funny person. She is fat but she never holds herself in contempt. She is cheerful all of the time. She is not selfish and she is very generous and helpful.

Well, sometimes I am selfish but of course sometimes I am kind. I have a bad temper. I'll get angry when I can't achieve something. Almost all my friends and my family and even my relatives will sometimes become afraid when I am angry, because I'll scream out and sometimes I'll break something on purpose. But most of the time, I'll be cheerful in school and get along with my sister. I'm very fortunate to have this sister. Of course, I'm kind to someone if they treat me kindly, but if they do something wrong to me I'll get my revenge.

Anyways, I don't feel any stress or any trouble, because my sister teaches me not to have pressure, and I just need not to bother about it, but just leave it alone.

Actually, I like to be left alone because I can have peace of mind and can think about everything without anybody disturbing me. By the way, I also do not need to talk too much.

Of course, we don't know about our future. Nobody can predict what the future will be. Nowadays, our world is facing a lot of trouble that we are not really able to solve, or maybe there will be an end to the world one day. Or maybe all the creatures or living things in the world will become extinct.

Although we are going to achieve Vision 2020, I think we should confront these obstacles. But, of course, everybody wants to have their own good future, so that they can live easily. People are quite selfish and always think of themselves. They always want to receive advantages and benefits from someone else.

I hope that every country may have a good future and all residents can live in a good condition. But all the residents of all the world must become shouldered together and to challenge all the trouble like pollution, disease, starvation and war.

Nowadays, the world is developing from long long ago until today. But, of course, some countries progress easily and more quickly than others. Unfortunately, some countries are "greedy," they want to control and administer the other countries. So they make war. War causes an unpeaceful world and destroys all of the buildings and all the people die. It also leaves all the residents living terrible, horrible lives. Every body lives in fear and scarcity, and no one lives in a peaceful environment. It's so terrible! I don't like it!

The world is facing another problem--pollution. Nowadays this issue is being discussed by all the countries in order to solve it. Why do they want to do such a foolish thing? It is better for them to take some effective action and save the world. Now the ozone layer is becoming less and less and the oxygen is not sufficient already. It is better if everybody is cooperative. It is better if they do not cut down the trees without control, or burn down the forest for development, wasting all the timber, releasing all the useless and poisonous gases.

Malaysia is a nice country. There are no wars or earthquakes here. It can be said that Malaysia is very peaceful and does not harm other countries.

Malaysia is administered by an intelligent and capable leader--Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir. I like him very much. He is a perfect man. He can progress and advance our country's economic condition and make friendship with other countries. Although he is now becoming old, he still looks young and strong.

Well, Malaysia has 3 vital races: Malays, Chinese and Indians. Most of the population are Malay, followed by Chinese and Indians. Some of the Malays here are lazy and some are hardworking. Why are they lazy? Of course, because of the government. They have privileges like private companies having to give at least some of them work. And most of them are protected by the government, such that they can get a high job in government companies. The Chinese are always serious. They are always hardworking in order to earn money. Most of them could be rich because they are stingy. Some of the teenagers do not like to study because they have in their minds just money x 1000.00. Well, I do not know much about Indians. But they are quite friendly.

Well, my family has seven people: mother, father, four sisters (including myself) and a brother.

My mother is a very strict person. She is very hardworking in order to raise the family. She wants us to study hard so that we can have a nice future. She is a capable person. She can work and work without stopping. Even though she always gives us an ear-full, we still respect her.

However, my father is a kind and cheerful person. He never becomes angry at us. He always makes jokes when we are under pressure or stress or are sad. He never controls us. We respect him, too, although he does not work because he is ill all of the time.

I have three younger sisters. The first one is very cheerful and generous. But of course sometimes she is not like that. She is very liberal. She doesn't want to be controlled by anyone. She wants to be free. My second younger sister is hardworking but irresponsible. She never pays attention while listening to my mom or dad or us. She is a selfish person, and my youngest sister is impolite and stingy and a selfish person too. She always cares about money, money, money. I don't like her very much. She is never obedient to my parents. She always shouts at them, so I always am strict on her. The last one is my brother. He is a talkative boy. He doesn't like to study. He is very intelligent and funny. When I ask him to study and learn to write, he always says 'Oh, I want to sleep now!' He is also not obedient. He doesn't respect my parents because he isn't afraid of them. So I get him back. I control him strictly. Even though he is still a child, he must also be taught from now.

Most of the people who live here on the Jetty are Hokkiens. There are about sixty to seventy houses here. All of the houses are built of wood.

Most of the old men here are working as fishermen or carrying passengers by boat. some of them do not work. They are "pensioned" already. But, of course, they will find something to do. Most of them are very kind and generous.

The women here are snoopers and busy bodies. They like to chat about other people's affairs. They are always gossiping behind the other people, although it is none of their business. They are always shouting to their children. They like to shout, and to chatter. Their attitudes make the teenagers here become very bothered. Every night, when they are free, they will sit outside their homes together or go to visit the other women to gossip. Most of them are selfish and stingy. They are jealous of other people who earn very much money. If other people earn money, then they will try to get close to them to learn their way of earning money. Some of them will start to gamble together. They also sometimes will become crazy when their children or kids are not obedient, study hard or can't earn extra money. They will mutter all the time.

However, the teenagers here mostly do not like to study or work. Most of the boys here are not studying anymore. Most of them stopped studying after Form 3. Of course, they are very intelligent in their math. They can calculate their money or whatever very quickly because they are always gambling most of the time, and they like to show off. They think that smoking, racing with motorcycles, gambling and spending luxuriously in front of ladies is more masculine.

And the ladies here can be said to like to beautify themselves to attract the attention of the others. They also always sit together to chat too.