Future Chinese Migration and Emotional Care

Abstract

For the migrants who left the place they were anchored to, the meaning of resettling is much more than the physical transition from one place to another. The journey of migration is also a process of transformation, during which people went through the self-deconstruction and reshape on many levels. For those who went across borders to the Netherlands in their early twenties to study or work, building a new life also means making an adjustment to a new reality where new information, values, cultural norms and social relations flooded in. This process may be filled with excitement and freshness for people who are able to respond positively to the adjustments, while the majority of people have a mixed experience of challenging, overwhelming, stressful or even traumatising situations. In the case of young Chinese migrants in the Netherlands, because of the unique cultural identity brought by history and the Chinese social system, their emotional struggles in the western world are relatively particular and obscure. This graduation project focused on developing a new vision towards migration for client NPC(NextPort Chine) and a design based on this vision. This is formulated in the assignment: Designing a product(or service system) based on research outcomes of the emotional needs of Chinese migrants who are deciding to make or have already made a decision to stay in the Netherlands, by 2025. ViP(Vision in Product Design) method was applied to build a future CHN-NL migration context and define the interaction method in this project. This future context was shaped by two overall determining driving forces and seven sub driving forces. Twelve cases in which people struggle personally or socially during the migration journey were finally revealed. After evaluating if the twelve cases were meaningful, in line with company scope, and potential to be developed into a functional product, two of the cases were finally chosen to be targeted design goal: Goal A: To help people restore their inner balance again after the impact of the migration process when people’s inner reality is confronted which can cause a psychological imbalance.
Goal B: To help people make peace with loneliness. After defining the ways of accomplishing the two design goals, two design solutions were then proposed to realise each of the design goals. Generated from Goal A, a mental care mini-program embedded in WeChat Application was designed to help with emotional struggles among young Chinese migrants to the Netherlands. Both peer support and access to professional mental therapy were provided to reduce the psychological imbalance. Generated from Goal B, a toolkit including deconstruction of the feeling of loneliness and a zine of loneliness objects was designed to help people cope with the emotions and rebuild self-esteem. Apart from evaluating the final outcome, suggestions for further design improvements and recommendations for future implementation were given in the last chapter.