ABSTRACT
This chapter offers glimpses of author's encounters with young informants in China, focusing not least on how awkwardness was an intrinsic part of these. Ultimately, awkwardness should not be seen as a problem, but as a part of the multi-faceted ways. A part of anthropological mythology is that, provided they play their cards right, fieldworkers can ultimately attain a form of ‘insidership’ with their informants, through which they can get the ‘insiders’ perspective’. Authenticity is commonly understood as something that is genuine and pure, while real friendship is often understood as being selfless and without interest for personal gain. The author argues that the reason why anthropologists see friendships with informants as valuable beyond their profound intrinsic value is an underlying assumption that deeper friendships provide access to deeper, higher-quality data. Despite being called children, several factors meant that young informants not only had to relate to an adult world but also had to make adult choices.
