First stop: Waipo Jia! If you end up in Hangzhou, DO NOT MISS this delectable culinary experience! Great food, great price, great, great, great. Tell them enovate sent you…

Satiated, we strolled alongside hordes of tourists and locals by the Westlake. Musicians lined the roads. Old men bowed their er hu’s while women belted into low-fi mics, with other brightly dressed women dancing rhythmic interpretations of traditional-Chinese-dance-meets-1920s-swing. Truly a site to behold.

A bit more walking, and we ended up at the day’s main event: The Xihu Music Festival. Blessed with perfect weather, we spent the day laying in grass, hopping in on drum circles, chatting to locals about Hangzhou’s hidden secrets, and of course, listening to music. The highlight for many was Taiwanese headliner, Soda Green, with other acts including 声音碎片 (Sheng Yin Sui Pian), Pitch Tuner, and Angie Hart.

The following day, our former intern / Hangzhou-extraordinaire, George, showed us around and introduced us to some friends, including the guys responsible for Charm Cafe. Read more about their efforts in promoting Hangzhou’s creative culture in today’s earlier post.

But rather than take you through a step-by-step narrative, I asked a couple people around the office to offer an anecdote, an observation, or something memorable. This has been our cooler-talk these past 3 days:

John

During our recent weekend visit to Hangzhou, there was one thing that really blew me away–the apparent level of government involvement in building the creative scene in Hangzhou. Speaking to Shu Chang, he indicated that it was the government who encouraged them to open up the cafe and creative space as the local government was interested in providing a space to support the various artists. Although funding and investment in the arts happens throughout China and also in the US, I was surprised that it was happening more at the grassroots level. I can see more of this happening in cities throughout China in the near future.

Joey

“Hangzhou is a place to live, Shanghai is a place for opportunities.” This was a statement from enovate’s Hangzhou street team leader, George, who is entering his senior year, majoring in Fashion Marketing and Engineering. “I will definitely be looking for work in Shanghai after I graduate,” George continued.

I love Shanghai. I live here, work here and the city’s energy keeps me focused and motivated like a higher power. However, I could not help but imagine living in Hangzhou, a wide-side-walked relaxing, creative hub where tourists come to frolic and over 7 million people reside. For George, Shanghai represents a city of opportunity, future possibilities and an escape for work. For me, Hangzhou also represents a city of opportunities and future possibilities, yet more of an escape from work. A world of difference.

Simon

One experience especially sticks out. I met a guy from Beijing at the festival who had just relocated to Hangzhou to work in the “Chinese culture business,” i.e. selling tea and Taichi to foreigners. I thought this is ironic since Beijing is widely considered as China’s cultural centre.

He said that he could enjoy his life much more in Hangzhou as he didn’t feel like he was working and spending all his time on public transport. He liked the weather and the more manageable size of the city. I wouldn’t exactly call this reverse migration, but maybe smart migration. I am not insinuating that Hangzhou will surpass Beijing in terms of culture. Rather, Hangzhou is a bit of an anomaly in China’s tiered ranking system. It does not qualify as a first tier city, but it stands apart from any other second tier city. Let’s call it a Tier 1.5.

Jermaine

I have found that Hangzhou is a city that cares for its travelers and citizens. For instance, during one of our taxi rides, Cola pointed out large awnings installed on intersections that were intended to keep cyclists protected from the elements while waiting for their lights to change. No more burning under the sun — no more getting drenched by torrential rain. It turns out these awnings were installed as advertising space. The local government cover their expenses by selling advertisement space. It is an action that benefits both the society and commerce. Hangzhou’s emphasis on environmental protection and a sustainable lifestyle has fueled a noteworthy biking culture. It’s great place to live, and a shinning example for other cities!

Leon

Hangzhou is defining itself as a main hub for China’s creative culture. Its relaxed, almost Bohemian, disposition makes it a perfect hotbed for the creatives. The yearly festivals like Xihu Music Festival, now have a nationwide reputation as a good event. More and more people are making the trip to see it for themselves. The city’s population is also becoming increasingly stylish. People everywhere were well dressed. Plus, as we learned from the guys over at Charm Cafe, the local government is taking bold steps to promote creativity in Hangzhou. The city surely holds a bright future.

Fabio

First, some thoughts about the independent brand “odi et amo.” Seeing Chinese kids be proud of the ancient quote of Catullo, a major Latin poet, made me quite nostalgic. I’ve studied Latin literature and language for five years, and as I delve deeper into China, I’m finding many similarities between the two cultures. Yet I still believe there is a lot of room in China to import more Italian and Greek culture. For now, it’s limited to Sinicized Italian restaurants with an inauthentic feel (i.e. Saizeriya). Speaking of food, I loved the Xihu Music Festival, but found the total lack of food and beverages unfortunate. People were getting McDonalds delivered to the entrance and sneaking in beers!

Mike

For one shining weekend it seemed like Hangzhou was the place to be in all of China. The weather was perfect, the tunes were rocking, libations were plentiful… Finally I understood at least half the statement of old: “The sky has heaven, earth has Suzhou and Hangzhou.” I’m still not completely sold on Suzhou (although I am a fan of at least of I. M. Pei’s New Suzhou Museum). But Hangzhou? More than once our band of enovators wistfully pined: “can we move here?”, “what if our new office was in HZ?”, and “this is the LIFE”. The lake, the festival, the bicycle friendly city planning, and most of all the food conspired to trap us all in its net like Oz’s poppy fields…

Festival culture in China is growing fast, and this year Beijing saw it’s greatest round of festivals yet! Those in attendance had three distinct events to choose from: Strawberry, Midi, and the Chaoyang Park music festival — each with its own feel and flare. I skipped the Chaoyang Park festival, but got a full dose of indie rock at Strawberry and Midi. Due to either poor planning or competitive spirit, both events went down on the same weekend. It turned into a bit of a Midi vs Strawberry showdown, and it seems most people would agree with me when I say: I liked Midi, but preferred Strawberry.

The Lineup Strawberry lasted 3 days with 6 stages and 132 bands/artists. The lineup was mostly local, as was the audience. Midi featured 5 stages with 139 bands/artists over 4 days. The Midi had a dozen overseas bands/artists, which may help explain its popularity with foreigners in China. While there was quite a bit of overlap in lineups, Strawberry had a couple big-name artists locked in exclusively, including 后海大鲨鱼 (Queen Sea Big Shark)，左小诅咒 (Zuoxiaozuzhou)，果味VC (Super VC). All in all, Strawberry showcased more Pop Rock acts, while Midi was more Rock & Roll.

Brand Presence Strawberry had a much larger array of brand sponsorship and media partners. Both festivals featured massive screens with occasional advertisements and booths where brands engaged concert-goers. The more-eye catching campaigns at Strawberry were the Renren and Diesel TVCs, a VW Polo car featured on stage, an Absolute booth where they served up fresh strawberry Vodka drinks, and the Converse and Dell booths which hosted all sorts of interactive activities for visitors. Cheap and refreshing booze meant the Absolute booth was by far the busiest, but Converse’s live paintings attracted quite the crowd as well. As for Midi, the more appealing campaigns include: Myspace’s TVCs and booth, and Clubzone.com.cn’s Hummer limo. Xiami.com, the music streaming site, gained a lot of exposure by giving out free orange scarves at both events. People came up with pretty creative ways of wearing and using the scarves.

…but What Do Chinese Youth Do at a Festival?

Drink!… not so much Absolute’s Strawberry booth hit the mark, whereas Jagermeister’s Midi presence fell short. Beers were also being served at both festivals, but don’t expect to see a western festival’s drinking culture here. These Chinese youth just don’t drink that much.

$$$ A wide-range of young entrepreneurs posted up at either festival to sell goods. These DIY vendors popped up everywhere, forming a pseudo fair. All sorts of creative paraphernalia was on sale: T-shirts, toys, posters, shoes, CDs… all the things you would expect to see at a festival.

Dress to Impress A quick glance hinted at this summer’s trends. The most popular items were 海魂衫 (white & blue striped shirts)，草帽 (straw hats), and funny T-shirts.

Enjoy the Performance Obviously, most people were there for the music, but the audience was surprisingly engaged. Hardcore fans were jumping around in a mosh-like delirium, others were swaying side-to-side in trance like rhythms. And in the true spirit of festivals, many showed up with flags to represent their hometown spirit.

Take Pictures Millions of pictures were taken as some watched most of the festival through their viewfinders. More than 30% of concert-goers were sporting heavy-guty, professional DSLRs. After the festival, many sprinted home to be the first to post photos on their Kaixin, Renren, and Douban. Just check out these Douban groups: http://www.douban.com/online/10396182/ http://www.douban.com/online/10408285/

Camping out What would a 3 day festival be without camping? At Midi, they actually allowed people to set up tents in and outside the park. Chinese youth are certainly taking their cues from international festival culture here.

… All in all, both events were a blast. While leaving Strawberry at its close, I heard a young guy sadly declaring: “This year’s fun is over. Have to wait for next year now..” I’m surprised by how much these events mean to local youth. It seems as quality of life improves, and leisure is more common, many youth are seeking out meaningful events. These events provide a platform to meet interesting, likeminded folks. Festivals like these are still few and far between in China, so many take up these opportunities to gather, have fun, and make relationships even if only for a weekend.

enovate is happy to announce our first-ever giveaway. From May 27 – 30, Shanghai will be host to the world’s best skateboarding, inline skaters, BMX, and MotoX riders. We’ve decided to offer you, our faithful readers, a chance to check out China’s action sports scene first-hand by offering up a set of X-Games tickets for Saturday (May 28).

Rules & regulations: Just enter your email below. Come Wednesday, May 26, we’ll contact the winner to pick up their tickets. Simple as pie.

Update: Congrats Tyler! See you by the halfpipe on saturday!

This past Saturday, I headed out towards the watermelon farms in rural Daxing district of Beijing for the grand opening of Woodward Beijing. While I missed the attendance of Beijing’s municipal officials and actor Yu Xia to inaugurate this special day, the real action started after all the prototypical Chinese ceremonial ribbon cutting was complete.

Woodward Beijing IS supreme. Situated on a four-star resort property, 410 acres of land is now home to indoor and outdoor ramps and bowls, with a gigantic outdoor skate plaza as the centerpiece. The 32,000 square foot outdoor skate plaza consists of skateable ledges, rails, hubbas, euro gaps, bank-to bank kickers, granite manual pads, steep banks and more. Escape from the sun and head into the 40,000 square foot indoor facility that features two different street courses with rails, banks, hubbas, and pyramids; a multi-level mini ramp; a wooden bowl with a spine and deep end; foam and resi pits; and a giant vert ramp with resi and foam pits attached.

Even if you don’t skateboard, you’d wish you did just by looking at the facilities. I was salivating and wishing it was all covered in snow the whole time (I’m a snowboarder).

While I didn’t see them all, I know I was present among many of the world’s best action sports athletes at the grand opening such as: Tony Hawk, Sandro Dias, Ryan Sheckler, Neal Hendrix, Pierre- Luc Gagnon, Dan Murphy, David Loy, Jaws, Andrew Cannon, Jimmy Carlin, Tom Asta, Chase Hawk, Chase Dehart, Dakota Roche and Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast and “Dancing with the Stars” winner, Shawn Johnson.

What caught my attention (other than Tony Hawk) were the gazes of the local Chinese skaters and audience members of the wicked skating before them (I am sure they didn’t really understand what they were witnessing). Interest in extreme sports has been growing amongst Chinese youth and the arrival of Woodward Beijing will not only stimulate this growth, but provide staying power. Education and training is an essential component to the development of extreme sports in China. Woodward Beijing is the new breeding ground for China’s future X-game competitors. And whether you’re a beginner or semi-pro, it is a space that provides access to skill development and professional training.

Woodward Beijing is the first international property in the U.S. -based Camp Woodward roster. For over forty years, Woodward has been providing premium-training facilities for both young amateurs and professional action sports and gymnastics athletes, including many Olympians. This camp will offer Skateboarding, BMX, Inline, dry land Snowboarding and Free Ski, Urban Dance, Digital Arts (Digital Photography / Video Production and Graphic Design), Music, Chinese and English language programs.

The camp is now OPEN. Check out their website: http://www.woodwardbeijing.cn/

Trendsetter: Gao Ya

Gao Ya is a college student at a Shanghai music engineering university, but is also passionate about acting. Much of her style influences derive from various genres of Rock music, from AC/DC to Beatles. She aspires to become an art director and clothing designer for films.

“Every night I will think about what I should wear the following day. In the morning I generally spend one hour to dress up and make sure my clothing, bag, accessories, hair style all match. I will stay home all day if I don’t know what I want to wear.”
“Lookbook is a major inspiration in terms of my personal style”
“I always pay attention to details… small little things can make our life interesting” (example: Mahjong bracelet below)

Gao Ya's Mahjong Bracelet

Trend Follower: Zhang Yu

Zhang Yu is a 22 year old Shanghai local, who has spent time studying in Australia. We definitely picked up on his strong international influences. As a high-level trend follower, he’s incredibly passionate about the latest fashion developments and is always ahead of the curve. He admitted to religiously changing his style every 3 months or so to keep it fresh.

“After graduating university in Australia, I flew back to Shanghai. My suitcase was 20 kilos over-weight, and it was all clothing!”
“My fashion philosophy can be summed up in three words: Fast, Accurate, and Decisive.
Fast: You have to be faster than others to be a trend follower!
Accurate: You should choose the right style that fits you, not Fei zhu liu!
Decisive: You need to be decisive when you are shopping. Do not hesitate to buy and don’t think about saving money.”

Zhang Yu circa 2008

Zhang Yu's foray into street fashion

Mass Fashion Prescriber: Mei Ling

Mei Ling is a 20 year old college student at Jiaotong University. As a high school student she was more into sports than fashion. Being on the swim team meant short hair and being in shape was more important than following fashion trends. But as is often the case, a college crush led her to start dolling herself up. Unfortunately, her crush went moved overseas, so she has since gone back to a causal – comfortable style.

“My favorites are comfortable t-shirts and jeans”

“To me, fashion trends are too far-removed, I just can’t keep up with them.”

Enovate director John Solomon is in Kuala Lumpur for Mobile Youth’s Unconference Malaysia. He’ll be alongside Graham Brown (UK), Ian Stewart (Singapore), Muhhamad Faisal (Indonesia), Samyak Chakrabarty (Mumbai), Bernard Hor (Malaysia), and Niki Cheong (Malaysia) discussing all things Asian Youth.

Be sure to keep up with John as he blogs live from the conference right here.

*Check out Mobile Youth’s website for more on this international collaboration.

March 11 — 11:30am

Thanks to Nick for setting this up. We are now heading out to the conference site and will be starting the conference at about 1pm. It has already been a thrilling time learning about different youth insights from some of the major markets around the world. More to come…

March 11 — 1:15pm

Good group rolling in now. about to get started. The first keynote will be Graham Brown, from mobileYouth. Just met one of the keynote speakers, Ian Stewart, who was recently with MTV and Friendster.

March 11 — 1:30pm

The ministers have arrived and we are set to go!

March 11 — 1:35pm

Delegates are representing 45% of the world’s population at this conference, a lot of youth voices and opinions here. Malaysia, although a relatively small country in the Asian region, is doing a lot to help young entrepreneurs incubate their business and entrepreneurial ventures…very impressive. We are in the Technology Park Malaysia which is a newly developed facility to help encourage this growth.

March 11 — 2:00pm

Graham’s keynote is now starting. Sharing examples and findings from 250 client and 60 clients.

- You don’t want to go for the customers that “like” you but “LOVE” you. The “fan factor.” You need to find and support them.

- Stop asking “how do I get on Facebook” and stop talking about your brand. Need to focus on helping youth to tell their story.

- Graham brings youth, Alvin, on stage to talk about brands in his life. He has had a Nokia phone since he was 7 years old and is a stronger supporter of Nike through soccer. Showing the power of word of mouth and passionate users and brand advocates. Youth driven by wanting to be involved and heard, give them that platform.

- Graham shows the awareness test (insert youtube clip), great way to show that 95% of what is going on (advertising!) is being filtered out.

- Focusing on the flip camera case study. flip gained 18% market share without doing any focus groups or advertising. Instead, focused on a grassroots approach. Went out and gave youth the camera to use for a week. The key insight they found–youth do not carry around the correct cables and that was the main impediment to using the device. Therefore, they developed the built-in USB connector and this solidified the future of this product. This could not have been developed from sitting in a focus group and asking questions. Instead, you need to get out into the field and immerse. Only then, will you truely understand user needs and requirements. Note, flip recently sold their company to Cisco for $600 million!

March 11 — 3:00pm

Ian starting his keynote. Previously worked at Coca Cola, MTV, Ogilvy, and Friendster. He also previously created a youth agency, Filter, that was sold to Aegis.

- Opportunity in Asia is huge but starting to fragment as social networking is maturing.

- lots of great information on www.slideshare.net/ianstewartmtv

- 40% of all interent users are in Asia. 76% of asia net users were on social networking sites BUT only 16.5% of Asia is currently online! 25,000 users per hour coming online in Asia!

- More Asians have a mobile phone than an internet connection

- Facebook is the 4th largest “country” in the world

- Youth multi-task and actually have a 36 hour day and 5 minutes of attention span

- People are media. each of us have social currency and have friends that we can get a message out to instantly

- most of Facebook’s growth is over 30 year olds

- myparentsjoinedfacebook.com ha ha!

Predictions for 2010:

- Teens and Tweens don’t have their own site right now.

- Everything heading into mobile

- Everyone wants immediacy

- Virtual currencies a boom

- Gifting and gaming will continue to expand

- Social shopping, ebay model doesn’t work if you have never sold anything before

- Monetization Models

- Cross Platform Aggregation

- Better privacy tools

- Brands Work It Out… 2008 was the year when brands asked about social media. 2009 gave it a try. Nokia has 1 mil fans on their Facebook page but they have no idea who owns it or how it started or WHAT TO DO WITH IT!

March 12 — 3:36pm

Coffee break!

March 12 — 5:50pm

We just finished our break out sessions. Really interesting to hear how similar youth in Malaysia are to Chinese youth BUT it is all about Facebook and Twitter here. Same themes: engage, allow for feedback loops, and add value. That is it for today!

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Our focus is bringing a core group of people from our collective networks together who have a shared interest in solving problems and rethinking tech, business and sustainability. We come from different sectors, cultures and countries. We’re angels, entrepreneurs, photographers, media, artists, writers, professionals and executives. We all have our passions and our interests. At our best, we define ourselves more by the ideas we share and the impact we want to make rather than the business cards we carry.

Confirmed guests and speakers include:

Invitation is intentionally limited to 200 participants to ensure the quality of the networking over the 4 days so please follow the below link and register for your pass asap.

http://rethinkhawaii.eventbrite.com

If you enter enovate in the promo code, you can get 35% off the ticket price – yahoo!

We will post more on the upcoming conference, and will be part of a China group braving the weather to go to Hawaii for the conference. If you are interested in joining us, please email renee@enovatechina.com, as we hear there may be some travel deals in the works.

More to come……..

Art! Mart! Music! Creative! Fun!

Get ready for some creative fun coming your way this month courtesy of our friends, neocha. As well as housing a sizeable flea market, the Creative City event will play host to a wide range of design groups, artists, musicians both performing and interacting with guests. Naturally, eno will be there with cool new products and activities, so make sure you get down for what promises to be a great event.

Creative City gets under way on Oct 16th and will be open every weekend until Nov 8th at the KIC event centre.

The festival activities including skateboarding, inline skating and BMX competitions, as well as music perfomances throughout the day. Mountain Dew, Pizza boy and Budweiser were all sponsors of the event. Compared to traditional advertising, sponsoring an event is an effective way to target consumers. Extreme sports, music and trends are all connected.

I was surprised by the many different groups of Chinese youth who were passionate about what they were doing and dressing in their own styles. For me, those involved in extreme sports dress more fashionably than average people. They also have a lot of trendy followers, these people are influential amongst Chinese youth. Instead of hiding their passion, which a lot of chinese young people will do, skaters/bmxers are more willing to stand out and be themselves. Making them your first customers, can be seen as the first step to becoming an influential brand amongst Chinese youth.