Serendipitous Fieldwork

How does law influence religion, and how does religion influence law? I travelled to various religious establishments in Hong Kong and China during my fieldwork. I had a list of the people that I wanted to interview. Top on the list was a person who was in charge of a religious organization, and so I wrote to her, and she kindly agreed to be interviewed. However, the data that she provided was, contrary to my expectation, of little help. On another occasion, I happened to talk to a gardener of a temple. This temple was not on my 'to go' list for I never knew that it existed, let alone the gardener. To my great surprise, he provided to me very important and useful information. So what's the moral of the story? You never know who will give you the best data. My fieldwork has certainly taught me what 'serendipity' means.