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.