What did you learn about “Living in Bintan” by interviewing different stakeholders using the different Compass perspectives ？

People who live in Bintan like the environment there. But most of them do not pay much attention to natural changes. When we asked about the weather, the most common answer was, ‘I didn’t notice it’. Actually, it is a good news that their living conditions were not bad enough to attract the attention of the locals. 🙂 Locals welcome tourists, this surprised me at first, I thought tourists will break the rules of Bintan, for example, people who do not know the cultures there, might go outdoor with shorts, this makes locals feel uncomfortable. Local people care more about the development of Bintan than their feelings, so they are looking forward to the development of tourism.

Why was it important to go through this process?

The information we got in the interview is the most authentic and the closest to ordinary people’s thinking. For example, the information we got was different. When we interviewed the principal, we could get information about the development of education in the country. When we asked the man who opened the shop, we could get some information about the national economy. Therefore, we can get more details and more authentic information.

When presenting your Compass perspectives (Nature, Economy, Society and Well Being) What did you do well? What could you improve?

I connected everything that I was going to talk about, so that when I switched topics, it won’t   strange. For example, from “how local people deal with garbage pollution” to “tourism development”, I said that although tourists will create more garbage, local environmental protection policy is very good to solve the problem of too much garbage, then, let’s talk about this policy… I think what I lack is my ability to express myself clearly, which will make the audience unable to understand what I want to express. This will make people feel confusing about my explanation, thus, I still have problem on language using.

Reflect on:

When the number of visitors start to grow, everything is going in the right direction. The economy will grow faster and the environment will be better in the beginning. Tourists will bring extra income to local people, and local people will protect the environment for tourists to enjoy. But when a large number of tourists come to Bintan, everything will change. The island cannot afford the vast demands for natural resources, the environment will get worse. However, the economy will continue to grow and people will develop various industries for tourists, such as tour guides, police officers, hotel staff, cooks, etc. That would change the fact that there are so many professional fishermen today. Thing we need to know is that while foreigners bring economic development, they will also bring cultural changes. They will bring new ideas and different cultures, and locals will absorb new things and learn new knowledge from those tourists.

Thank you!