I think that Tesco was introduced to me one of the first days that we got to Europe. It’s where the people in Europe do their grocery shopping, grab their lunch, and can even shop for clothing in select stores. Tescos are everywhere, especially in the UK. I got to experience the European Tesco experience in London and in Prague and I noticed some differences in the way people shop.
First of all, when we did our ethnography in the Tesco in the UK, it was much quieter with fewer shoppers than the one in Prague. This London Tesco was a Tesco Express and we went at about 11 in the morning and in Prague we went to a Tesco that was in the middle of a shopping center at 3:00 pm. This could have been why there were less shoppers in the London one. That could have also been why I gathered a lot more information and noticed more shopping patterns in the Prague Tesco. Prague’s Tesco was much bigger, with a second floor that sold clothing and other things the London Tesco didn’t offer. I noticed that people in Prague had a many more items in their shopping cart. In London people only had a few things such as bread or milk and a few vegetables. People brought their kids shopping with them more so in Prague as well. In London the primary shoppers were women, or couples together.
I got to use my senses a lot more in the Tesco in Prague. In general, when I was in London, I used my senses less because I was just learning how to be a good ethnographer. In Prague I understood just how important using all your senses are, and I used them when doing the “30 things in 30 minutes.”
First of all, sight is the most common sense that we all use. We as a group were told when doing our ethnography to focus on our other senses and to not rely primarily on our sense of sight. Doing the “30 things in 30 minutes” really forced me to go beyond sight and gain perspective with my other senses. We could only have 15 of our 30 things be from our sense of sight, and this time I tried to focus what I saw on people’s behavior. Usually I would focus on what I saw in the store, what the people were wearing, rather than observing people’s behavior while shopping. Some behaviors I noticed were where people kept their purses while shopping. Some women carried their purse on their shoulder while others placed it in their carts. I stood by the produce section and watched how people inspected their fruits, compared it to others, placed them in the bag, tied the bag, placed it in their cart. People all had their own ways of doing it but a patterned I noticed was that people would pick up at least three fruits before deiciding which one to get. When people were shopping with another person, I saw them inspect products together.
The sense that was easiest for me to focus on was hearing. When I stopped to listen to the things around me I picked up on sounds that were in the background as well as the louder sounds. I could hear the rustling of the plastic produce bags when people ripped them off of the roll, this was suprisingly loud. I closed my eyes and hear the humming of the escalator motor. I heard carts moving around the store, the beeping of the check out machines, people’s quiet conversations. I heard sounds that were constant and sounds that only happened once in a while like a woman’s heels clicking against the ground. I didn’t notice the music until I listened for it, but once I did I heard every song clearly.
I picked up on certain smells. Scent is our most powerful sense. It has the ability to trigger memories within us, which I noticed a few scents for me did just that. For example, I went down the detergent aisle and smelled the fresh, crisp scent of laundry detergent. This brought me back to a candle I used to burn that was called “Fresh Laundry.” It reminded me of my sophomore year in high school when I used to burn that candle. I also smelled the fish aisle, the freezer aisle reminded me of summer when I eat a lot of popsicles, the fresh bread smell by the baguettes, and a man’s spicy cologne when he walked by.
I made an extra point to feel more things in this store. In the London Tesco I don’t think I felt anything. This time I did and it made me more “in touch” (no pun intended), with the entire experience. I picked up the spikey pineapple, felt all the different textures of the fruits, felt the temperature change in the freezer section, picked up a candy bar that looked heavy, but turned out to weigh almost nothing, I took a sample of hand sanitizer and felt how it transformed on my hand from wet to dry. Almost everything I could touch I did and it made the experience more personal I found.
I thought the whole Tesco experience was a great way to get to know the people in the cultures we are studying. Grocery shopping is an average, everyday activity. People in these Tesco were in a natural enviornment t and using all my senses to observe them helped me to understand them a little better.
-Katelyn
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