Beijing Life

It gets a bit windy some days in Beijing

Yen Countdown

The PRC, being run in a top down sort of affair has allocated a district in Beijing solely for the artist community. It's called 798. I don't normally approve of art-under-duress but on New Years Eve I made an exception.

Beijing Strategy

The fifth to seventh floors at the Xie Dan shopping complex called Beijing Stategy are as good a place as any to check out where the hip kids are at, in the same way as say Harajuku would be the place to trend-watch emerging fashion changes in Tokyo. Its interesting to see what these young folk are wearing, what they are into and how they behave with each other. Although its mainly a 'teen +' fashion hangout, if you dig a little deeper into the boutique end on other floors you'll get to see a slightly older female customer looking for more sophisticated outfits. They're of the type that like to dress impressively but don't have the budget of hitting say The Place or The Peninsula Arcade at The Peninsula for top end luxury brands. Some of them are just smarter too! Beijing is a great place for buying clothes that look terrific but aren't necessarily designed to last forever. I guess this is somewhat indicative of the disposable society the West created I'd point out. More on that later because I've got some thoughts emerging on that one. I can't wait for oil to hit 200 bucks a barrel.

Anyway, while walking around Xie Dan which is one of at least three locations in Beijing that has a whole shop dedicated to Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas, I then stumbled across a shop called Boing Boing. I wondered at the time if they knew about one of the worlds top blogs and took a quick snap. So I was a bit bloody surprised to discover shortly afterwards I had been linked to by Boing Boing and saw my traffic stats go through the roof. Wanna take a peek?

Anyway, those peeps rushing over here to check out the crumpled porcelain beer cans will be unlikely to pay more visits and if truth be known I'm not looking for traffic, I'm looking for comrades as I mentioned to Johnnie, Damiano, Jamie and John last year at the Endurance in Soho. But it was quite a learning experience to check out the oodles of data that Google Analytics provides such as who came, where they came from, their ISP, what they clicked on, how long they stayed, where they went to next and all that stuff which very few bloggers ever talk about but is for me one of the reasons why I can 'head held up high' say I like a bit of quant now and again, as I said in one of my tweets that I've just discovered has been fed into a site I've never come across before. Once again I'm compelled to reminds folks that McLuhan said the third world war would be an information war with no division between civilian and military which sounds like fun doesn't it? (Churchill also said something similar and prescient).

China Central Television Building (CCTV)

I took a taxi ride out to the new CCTV building over the Christmas break. They have recently connected the two main pillars in a feat of engineering that can only be truly appreciated by standing under it, walking around it and hopefully the next time I go by sneaking into it.

Architecture for me is a love affair and I've been folllowing the Dutch mastermind for the CCTV building in Beijing for a while now. His name is Rem Koolhaas and this latest project is truly the only building since the the Guggenheim in Bilbao, which I've felt has challenged and then extended my appreciation and meaning of the building form. I was close to trembling while standing under that huge overhang - but maybe that was the hangover too. Its all steel and feels like a Airbus A340 is suspended over your head. Here are the pictures from my N95 mobile phone camera that really don't do it justice.

It appears to defy general gravitational and architectural balance guidelines. I'd really like to hear what Owen Hatherley of Nasty Brutalist and Short thinks of this design. I feel that this qualifies in some respects as as good example of brutalist with other design nods and dimensions that I'd love to hear Owen's erudite (and quality socialist I might add) views.

The shot below is really pushing the zoom feature on the N95 to the max. The slightest movement shows up on the final shot but I think it starts to give a feel for all the safety netting suspended underneath the overhang as it was conjoined recently.

I couldn't help but look at all the lovely media space waiting to be made beautiful. Or at least let Beijing use it as a graffiti space. Its huge and rusting at the moment.

It needs to be walked around to appreciate all its angles.


If you look really hard. You can see the construction workers walking on a little horizontal section at the point where the sky meets the upper part of the joining section. Or put another way the other side of where the sun's glare is.


Just seeing this building means I have no choice now but to buy a decent camera. Any suggestions very much welcome. You might be able to see what I'm trying to capture. Expect more Beijing architecture. There are some amazing pieces around the city for the Olympics.

Burn Down The TV Stations

This is pretty much what I've been advocating for the new advertising agency business model in my post over here and first aired over here. Its gets simpler the more I see people explain what I'm trying to attempt as it becomes more self evident of where we are heading.

Roughly speaking, ditch the interruptive messaging and get experimental/useful/collaborative across lots and lots of relevant communities in Lo Fi - Also be prepared to fail plenty and as a consequence succeed more demonstrably by embracing the upside of risk. Lo Fi is the new Hi Fi. Collective participation is more authentic than corporate brand synthesis. As audiences get smarter, the big switch comes closer. Its just a matter of time.

By way of the impressive Johnnie Moore

Thrifty Thinking

I've been meaning to post this utterly brilliant piece since I saw it first in Milan at the global creative review I talked about over here. The creative person on this work is Brendan Donnelly and I think he got his casting better than one could really wish for in terms of acting. Now my opinion on this ad doesn't really count until Famous Rob has given his view, because nobody reviews an ad quite like Rob Mortimer.

2007

Its drawing towards the end of the year now and what a year its been - I'll never forget 2007 AD because it came fully loaded with really good people, terrific connections, quality conversation and deeply interesting times - I can't say that about every year. There have been a few turkeys.

All the people I went out of my way to meet this year were both digitally-literate and networked to the hilt. I've been pondering recently that in theory I could go missing, and still feel confident that it wouldn't take me more than a few days to get back up to speed; what's new, where to look, what's interesting, where its developing. I'd probably never ditch Twitter though even if I do try a spell as a Benedictine monk. There's nothing in their rules on a vow of silence preventing an SMS of what I'm doing! 

What am I trying to say? I think this augmented extension of the self through the internet, can provide an ability to repair foolishly untended relationships quite quickly. That I think this nascent network in 2007 is invaluable in terms of digitally experiential relationships, and probably seminal in terms of human relationships. There's nothing quite like meeting the characters behind the keyboard. It doesn't matter about the country or the culture. I think this new social pattern is a different process than say being disconnected from your mates, since you left school and then the internet kicking off and finding Classmates.com or Friendsreunited.com rudely interrupting the illusion we hold of ourselves. The one that we have built in the absence of continuous partial attention reminding us of who we all actually are. I think this says bundles about the difference between the digital natives and the digital immigrants. I find it fascinating that in the future there will be no people like some of us immigrants who have the benefit of both hindsight and I hope a little digital foresight...... But I'm not planning on going anywhere. There's just way too much interesting stuff going on. 

You could do no better than look at Johnnie Moore's recent post about David Snowdon which reaffirms what I think is a profound change for 21st century communications. There is the notion that we are rewiring our brains to do what they always did best anyway; absorb lots of loosely connected information and build a picture from that which equates to a much closer representation of reality than the one that 20th century hierarchically driven monologue and the militantly linear and didactic process that the scientific method dispensed us. Oh shit, that sounds like an intellectually conceited mouthful doesn't it? I do go off on one occasionally. Sorry about that. 

An easier way to understand all this might be to highlight that humans are designed for chit chat. We absorb stuff much better that way. Anyway I didn't know I was going to go down this path when I set out on this post because I find blogging about communication theory a little bit like complaining about the food not being salty enough when the salt mill is to hand. But I am very grateful that some people have been paying attention because I'm (it should be we, but I don't want to sound like I'm aping Wallpaper), are just a little bit chuffed that Punk Planning made it into Campaign's top ten blogs. We're also deeply indebted to people like Rob Campbell from Musings of an Opinionated Sod for showing the rules and conventions that can be broken, while still being able to spot the corporate/agency stench of bullshit from leagues and furlongs away. Opinionated Sod! We salute you :)

1969

1969 was an ace year. There was Woodstock, Apollo 11 and man first walking on the moon. The first Boing 747 and Concorde flight, test tube fertilisation of human eggs, The Beatles last gig on Apple Records rooftop, John & Yoko conducting their Bed-In, the Stonewall Riots, and the introduction of the ATM as well as the opening of the Beijing Subway, the mass anti Vietnam War demonstrations and don't forget the first message between two computers through Arpanet the forerunner of the internet.

Well anyway I'm biased and so it seems are Kappa. I couldn't resist this just in case the last few posts were a bit too serious, and even though Lauren doesn't like my Puff Charlie look. But the way I see it 1969 is so close to the 70's which is just a mere extension of and adjacent to the 80's. Doddsy knows all about all of them anyway. He was there man.

Beijing Smog

Beijing was immersed in smog for a marathon three or so days till this afternoon, and I thought I'd take a picture of how it looked compared with a clear day earlier in the month that I blogged about over here. There's a lot of schandenfreude in the Western Press over (well over anything Chinese actually) the smog in Beijing in the run up to the Olympics, along with less helpful suggestions that restricting the traffic will have an impact. It doesn't! The smog occurs over the weekends too. It looks very much like its the smokestack industries to the west of Beijing that are responsible for all this. The ones that made the remote controlled toy helicopters you secured for Christmas or filled up the Christmas crackers with plastic toys. Well you know how I feel about buying pointless shit.

I'm quite sure they will restrict these offending polluters around the time of the Beijing Olympics to make sure that our international visitors have a good time, and leave with a postive impression. Before the 15 million of us who live here can get back to doing what we do best. Cleaning the air by breathing it in with our lungs, and making the it sparkle and clean like below.

What I find most daunting is that things are unlikely to change in the short term. China is under pressure to reduce its trade imbalance with the U.S. and all the other countries that consume its vast output at morally questionable prices, I talked about over here. How are they going to do this? Well, part of the answer is that China will subsidise those TV's, personal computers, washing machines, air conditioners and domestically produced mobile phones to its rural/low tier city constituency before it asks the West for something in return. That last article slipped by a lot of people in the mobile phone business. It was released in the Indian press first just before the Christmas break.

Random Retail

I've talked about the China Adidas 'Impossible is nothing' stuff before over here, and Rob raised a really good point about the work not being representational of the international spirit of the Olympic games which is bang on. I haven't seen one mention of another country mentioned in any of the communications for this international event. I think the onus is on the international agencies to have a word with the Chinese clients about this very inward approach to what is after all a celebration of multinational competitive spirit. Age also did a post on the Adidas commercial being derivative of a Visa commerical which is well worth a once-over here.
Personally I think line artwork is lovely stuff at the moment and I'm trying to get across to the teams I'm working with that tonality is crucial in marketing communications. That the messaging is often less important than the way an ad 'feels'.

But really, sports apparel advertising is looking soooo cliched - They are all clinging to lamposts like drunks, including Nike. The main high street in Beijing is dominated by Adidas with 'Impossible is nothing' as you can see above, but on the same high street is a domestic sports brand called Li Ning. Their flagship store is here, and their endline in red at the bottom of the poster below reads 'Anything is Possible'. This is for me the real challenge out here. Persuading brands to find their own voice, and understanding that standing out for the right reasons is a good thing. I'm already seeing a Yin and Yang correctional approach to branding and research... If its too functional that means we need to add emotional. If its too emotional it needs more functional. No it doesn't. It needs what it needs. There's also a philosophical debate to be had over business entities that exist in countries for no other reason than wealth creation. If that's the case then a brands values are all about making money. Period.

Personally I'm all up for the sports brand that talks frankly. Something along the lines of 'We know you stuff your pie-hole with takeaway pizza and corn syrup beverages but you do like to watch matches on the box down the pub with your mates, while wearing some sporty looking kit now and again'. That's a brand voice. Tagline - 'Its impossible, another cheeky half fella?'.


I saw this sign above while wandering around the latest shopping mall to open, and couldn't resist taking a snap. Of course I was thinking about 'her' at the time. She's so... she's so freestyle baby, and she's just for me. Apparently.


Later on I as I descended the escalator in the adjoining department store, I got thinking if this guy could qualify for that whole uncanny valley thing that Russell was talking about. That name though...Hunter Funny.... Most awesome n'est pas?


No post on Beijing retail could get by without some reference to Panasonic's Olympic street theatre on Wanfujing. Seriously, I don't know if Panasonic have ever knowingly had creative tumescence. This (ahem) brand, particularly in Asia (like Canon) suffers from the marketing communications equivalent of a charisma bypass. Whatever you do... Don't stand out! The Canon endline is particularly irritating. 'Delighting you always'. What a pile of shit that is. They so-don't delight people that I challenge anyone to find a delighted Canon user on the whole internet....Ever. At least Panasonic with their 'Ideas for life' are implying that they are just ideas and you wont need them when you're dead, and that they aren't a Volvo.

Last but not least, is it just me that sees a bit of Chinese (yes grasshopper) in the Colonel above? There's a healthy dominance of KFC over McDonalds for number of outlets in China and I'm blaming the atavistic logo! Ha

Hutong Life

One of the quintessential yet rapidly disappearing Beijing ways of life is the hutong. The hutong is the traditional architectural and communal structure for this style of living and stretches back centuries. Communal living in this style does however often present some harder realities. There are a terrific series of posts on Beijing hutongs including lots of photography over at Beijing Visitor

Recombinant Christmas Culture

Across Asia the desire to get into the Western tradition of Christmas spirit is quite notable. There are variations from country to country. Thailand as a Buddhist country or Indonesia as an practioners of Islam for instance don't celebrate the day itself. Thus Santa Claus (mashed up with Minnie Mouse above) are ubiquitous right across the continent at this time of the year, but often references to biblical characters such as Jesus or characters from the Nativity are erased. Worth a mention was the countdown on Christmas Eve at midnight. The crowd at the nightclub we visited, really went for it with more gusto than I've seen in many European capitals. Its fair to say that Christmas celebrations are beginning to transcend culture as a period of celebration that city dwellers (in the main) can find accessible.

This young lady was hamming up a little at the bar and shortly after left as if nothing had happened. A sort of faux intoxiqué if you like. I've experienced this behaviour across different cultures, genders and age groups and concluded that reasoning with these folk is the same as trying to reason with a drunk - completely unpredictable. Although they know what they are doing, they can play oblivious at any point. I do like the face in bar action going on here. Its the little touches that can convince. Merry Christmas Everyone.

Internet Youth China

I've been taking a look around Beijing and as part of that exploration visiting random internet cafes and enjoying the luxury of being able to observe the customers. It's pure gold getting to know what they are using their computer terminal for, how they behave and what is their internet life through free observation.

As a nomadic planner, I've always done this in internet cafes around the world for the quality of information and even made a point of getting to know the owners of these places to pick up early on digital trends. This is the place where I first learnt that QQ is popular in Asia over 4 years ago from the owner of Bull internet in Hua Hin on Petchakasem road. Its also the place where I first picked up on that Camfrog trend which says so much about the way Asian youths leapfrog the cultural mores of the West in ways that most people are still trying to figure out. For me sitting in internet cafes is a bit like sitting in twenty peoples living rooms as an ethnographer and qualitative researcher all rolled into one. It's pure digital voyeurism and although I'm writing a report on this for a client, I can share with you that I've never seen anything remotely on the scale of the place below.

The usual modus operandi for cyber cafes in Asia (outside of say HK, SG, KR and JP) are that the computers are disparate second hand models still using CRT monitor technology and the places are often screamingly loud (particularly out of school hours) from all the game playing going on. I usually need to wear headphones and listen to music to keep my sanity, if I have work to do, but the place above was unnervingly silent - like walking into a library where the majority of people are studying and not browsing. You can practically feel the thinking going on as if it's an extended digital nervous system. Now this might not seem worth a mention if it wasn't for the sheer scale of the place. The photo doesn't quite do it justice but from where I'm standing on the stairs the length of the room is cavernous and between twenty to thirty rows deep. All of the customers were relaxed and even smoking cigarettes while facing completely uniform terminals and LCD screens with web cam as standard which is more than can be said of many advertising agencies or their clients who haven't cottoned on to the implications of web cam.

There wasn't a peep to be heard. This shot was taken at 1 minute past 9 in the evening. I'd say television's monologue is beginning to look quite stale if this amount of people choose to pay money rather than watch the free state controlled offering. I'd also say that the internet users are some of the most informed customers in China. Worth keeping tabs on, don't you think?

Kitchen Confidential - N96

I did get to handle one of these back in October with the N Series team at The Energy Clinic in Shoreditch, but was contractually obliged to not talk about it. However, now that its been leaked to the blogging media I guess its safe for me to talk about, but at the time I wanted to twitter that I'd just seen one as it looked and felt so nice.

I've had a real chance to evaluate the N95 a lot more since this post, and play with some of the apps that Nokia Beta Labs provide, as well as synch the unit with my Lenovo Thinkpad T61 to use as a PDA. I'm beginning to like it more as a business tool as it synchronizes with my office software. The improvements are mainly in the keypad which are poor on the current model, the flatter and wider screen which I thought was close to bleeding off the edge in the model I held, the user interface display is also cleaner on the N96 and I see there is a double flash now for better night time photography.

I've heard that the 'in-between' 8GB model doesn't reboot automatically and that its faster which are two of the main complaints with the first model but in principle the N96 is looking slicker and sexier. Here are the pics as supplied by www.ubergizmo.com

I still don't rate the camera as responsive enough on the current model. There's no point having 5 megapixels and Carl Zeiss lens if the shots are slow to set up. I speak as someone who does photography a fair bit. I hope that Rob is going to let me have a play with his client's Sony Ericsson K850i because I'd like to know how good the photography is on it.

Update: I'm not on contractually bound 'gardening leave'. You know, one where my former employers ensure I don't speak to client-conflicting future employers contractually. If I was, you can be sure I'd be the last to throw stones in glasshouses.

Communication Breakdown

One of my new resolutions is to reuse paper and plastic cups as often as possible. I thought I'd start with the Starbucks coffee downstairs because its no hassle to rinse their cup and reuse. I also thought I'd reuse the polystyrene cup that McDonalds use to serve their delicious morning coffee that I talked about over here. The first morning I indicated my intention to resue my cup, and the lady at the till said "No, no, no". I nearly broke out into "you don't love me and I know now" but it wasn't the time to be witty so I persisted and she called the manager. I thought the problem had been resolved but instead my breakfast was served like this.


It's not easy being green, I tells ya. Maybe the folks from Responsible China can help out or as the New York Times puts it so well. "Civilization will attain new heights when we all patronize McDonald's and Burger King with our own knives, forks, spoons and plates. Wouldn't fast food be even faster if we brought our own eating equipment and did our own dishes? But then such basic social skills as maintaining our own supply of cutlery and washing our own dishes are beyond most of us once we step outside our own homes.

Kokiriko Bushi

iPhone Upgrade

Well, it didn't take long for China to crack out a new 'improved' iPhone with extra vibrating feature. I did see a girl using one in McDonalds this morning but now I'm sceptical if it was the real thing. This ties directly into Chris Anderson's Keynote speech on the topics of free and abundance at Nokia World just recently, and which is a must see video presentation over here.

Tip of the hat and thanks to Alvin for alerting me to this.

Lenovo Mobile Phone Advertising

There's lots I could say about this, but before the world screams "lame" take a closer look to the advertising that worked in the 60's and 70's in developed economies where media literacy was about the same as it is in China's cities. I posted about it over here. That doesn't mean I like this kind of commercial, it just means that everything is contextual. As those who know me are well aware of.

Looking for a Planning Director

We're looking for a Planning Director to work in China and run a department, but not directly for me. Which is probably a very good thing. If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment or go to the 'about me' me section for my email. Japanese recruitment agencies might want to pick up the phone unlike these fools.

Chinese Literacy

Chairman Mao was a prolific reader. It's rumoured he would spend days in bed surrounded by piles of books absorbing a diverse selection ranging from philosophy to politics and religion. If his chosen reading was unavailable he'd plump for anything to hand. One of the observations experienced was that a security guard was reading easily the thickest book I've ever seen a security guard read, anywhere in the world. Over the last couple of weeks, I've noticed there are a number of statues around Beijing celebrating the power of books and reading. The one above is outside the Beijing Books Building and was taken as I walked from Xidan through Tiananmen square to Wanfujing over the weekend. Chinese literacy is one of the highest in Asia at around 90% if the CIA world fact book is to be believed. Speaking of facts, asessments of China were recently downgraded by 40% if you were paying attention to what the U.S. controlled World Bank announced yesterday. Makes me wonder what metrics China would use to measure the U.S.

The smog in Beijing at the moment is rather harsh.

Is this minty?

Most people know that Thailand is my spiritual home and where my daughter waits for me. I've never caught more natural smiles than while walking through Klong Toey market than in any other place on the planet - I've always felt more at home with the underprivileged and the people of Isan than the plutocratic and plundering Bangkok ruling elite such as the former Prime Minister Taksin Shinawatra (Owner of Man City Football Club) who is under investigation for human rights abuses including those 3000 or so extra judicial killings a few years back.

No, I don't mean the smiles that are laid on in the environment of the 'White Collar' classes which you can read more about over here. I mean the smiles that are free, simple, unpretentious and generous of life.

I deeply regret what the West did by selling electrification and the automobile into Siam. An idyllic and rural paradise on earth that can still be glimpsed today in out of town places and where the people in the past, were in harmony with their environment, where they turned from agrarian littering of discarded banana skins and coconuts that decomposed naturally into the environment, to plastic bag throwers that blight most of the cities of S.E. Asia

But this ad I stumbled across earlier is I believe not a showcase example of this wonderful country, and as we talked about over here could well be yet another example of latent racism. Thailand you are bigger and better than this. It is my belief the creatives tried to put the right message in at the beginning, when I thought it was starting to look like a WORLD CLASS AD.