Christian Jade A.

Beato March 3, 2017

CEE11

Participant Observation:

Disguise as a Garbage Collector for One Day

I. My Participant Observation Experience

Collecting the garbage is a hard job because, based from my experience in one
day, you could feel the competition from the other garbage collectors as well as you keep
on pushing yourself on your own.
Since from the start is very hard, you could feel the embarrassment to yourself
because of your appearance to the public and your attitudes that’s a bit sensitive of mine.
I feel embarrassed because I am the person who cannot stand himself, exposing to the
public that you’re collecting a garbage or something. It really feels like you cannot feel
the way the other collectors feel in the state of their everyday lives. The next thing to be
embarrassed is, the way other people look at you, it feels like they looked at you as a
super low class from to their class. We went to collect the garbage from house to houses,
even there are some people inside of their houses that you could feel their ignorance,
and that thing makes me feel a little bit frustrated, because you could feel that you are a
little bit impatient in collecting garbage, but some other collectors can handle it easily.
Maybe from my observation, collectors really can handle their hunger and their job not
only for a day, but also every day. There are some people really does have a heart to give
you some stuffs you collect for the junk shop.
We take a break in the noon because of the environment is so hot, the sun is
boiling inside you, but other collectors keep looking for the stuffs that they could get for
like, a day. Then for a long day of collecting garbage with my group, since we’re a
beginner, we gained for a total of forty-eight pesos, estimated as fifty pesos. And from
the interview, having a junk shop can be a good business, sufficient profit could finish
your five children in the college, but not too fancy college. And depending on their prices
and their dealers such as trucks full of plastics, metals, or sometimes full of papers that
 the junk shop owners could sell it to the segregation plant. Where the owner could gain
their profit in their business.

II. Lessons Learned

a. Is participant observation a good method for gathering information for the topic you have
chosen and why?

Participant Observation is a great thing to blend yourself in the subject of

the study, you could use your senses and your personality to their personality in
everyday lives. For me, these kind of topic is very suitable for the data gathering,
because there are the times that you need to experience and feel their everyday
lives in accordance to your topic. Topic like collecting garbage is not just observing
these people but also you should feel their everyday lives. Interaction with them
like interviews, or approaching for the instructions is a very good thing for
gathering the data. As I observe from my experience, participant observation
could develop your confident and independent from interacting different people
in your study.

b. Answer these question: What did you learn from the people you observed of from the
whole experience? What strengths and weaknesses have you discovered about yourself
when you did this project?

Based from my experience, there are times that you are getting too
embarrassing and frustration. First of all, encountering to blend yourself to the
subject is hard for me, because your everyday life is different to their everyday
lives, and it’s so hard to adjust yourself to them. Second of course you are getting
embarrassed, you need to act and dress like them, and it was so hard to adjust
yourself to be with them, especially you feel their competition against them. And
third, the way people look at you is so sad, because you could feel their ignorance
to you, sometimes there are people who really gives a temper to you just because
 they feel annoyed from you. And of course, the thing that I could do is, at first it’s
hard to be with them, but a few moments, you are getting more and more
confident. You could feel the teamwork from your group and reflection to them.
I feel inspired to them because they are working harder than us. It gives me
motivation to study harder and work hard just to be successful.

III. Actual Picture

Groupmates:

(Christian Jade Beato, Aira Ortiz, John Paulo Manalo, Aimee Shayne Parreño, & Krisa Reyes)