The Creators Project is a network dedicated to the celebration of creativity and culture across media, and around the world. It is featuring Chinese creatives such as the singer and guitarist of Carsick Cars, and animator Ray Lei, and it is going to end with a big 3-day finale event in Beijing this September. Stay tuned for upcoming events info.

Please see flyer below or click here for more details.

On Friday, January 29^th, 360quan.com hosted their 90后潮流先锋榜 (post-90’s generation pioneering trends list) awards ceremony in Beijing. Actor Li Chen emceed the event featuring stars such as Jade Liu Li Yang and Yico Zeng, who came to receive their award and perform for the cheering crowd of Chinese teenage fans from all over China.

These same cheering teenagers and their peers voted on actresses, actors, artists, bands, brands, musicians, and works of art of various types for their influence and pioneering abilities in their respective industries. In collaboration with Mogo, 1626.com and YOHO!, 360quan.com invited their post-90’s generation members to vote within two categories, one for most ‘pioneering spirit’ and the other for ‘must have’ product or brand.

eno won the award for ‘must have independent brand.’ Among the list of ‘must have’ were: HP (notebook), Samsung (mobile phone), ONLY (women’s apparel), Adidas (sports apparel), New Fei Fei 新飞飞 (Netease’s 3-D online game), YOHO! (e-commerce site), Twice (jewelry accessories) and Mito Xiu Xi 美图秀秀 (image processing software).

Here’s who they voted for pioneering spirit: Jade Liu Li Yang 刘力扬 (singer), Xiao Song Jia 小宋佳 (actress), Lucky Monkey 跳猴乐队(fusion punk band), Shi Yan Fei 施艳飞 (up & coming actress), Chang Si Si 常思思 (up & coming folk singer), Zhang Xiao He 张小盒 (online character), Chen Chen 陈晨 (written work). And here’s who they voted for the pioneering spirits of the post-90’s generation (meaning they were actually born in the 1990’s): Yico Zeng 曾轶可 (singer), Li Chen 李晨(TV host), 杨紫 Yang Zi (pop star), BY2 (Singaporean music duo), Caffiene (band), Ai Shui Shui 艾水水 (TV & Film work).

360quan.com is China’s fastest growing social media network for post-90’s generation youth. With close to 25 million registered users, 360quan.com is devoted to providing an online home for people with similar interests, online clans, and super-connectors. The platform provides all the basics of an SNS, including personal space, blogs, music, videos, photo albums, games and other multimedia services and content. Their users have a distinct urban youth culture; they are the hip-hop artists, the make-up stylists, the snowboarders and the parkour clubs that  are leading China’s youth revolution.

Once again thank you 360quan.com and special thanks to our post-90’s generation fans!

]]> http://enovatechina.com/blog/post-90%e2%80%99s-chinese-youth-vote-eno-as-a-%e2%80%98must-have%e2%80%99-brand/feed/ 1 http://enovatechina.com/blog/what-do-chinas-best-brightest-drink-coffee-or-tea/ http://enovatechina.com/blog/what-do-chinas-best-brightest-drink-coffee-or-tea/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:56:19 +0000 Simon http://enovatechina.com/blog/?p=1423 The following blog contribution comes from our friend in the north, Alec Ash. Alec is based in Beijing, studying at the country’s most prestigious university, Beida (Peking University). Mr. Ash has been kind enough to take time out from his own blog to help give us a better insight as to how the Chinese student population consume tea and coffee.

This is Li Ziyin, a fourth year law student at Peking University (Beida), swotting for her mid-terms. She is easy to talk with and quick to smile, delighted that I know well the area of Beijing in which her family lives. She enjoys dressing prettily and will pay extra for it, and likes Western food more than her mother’s cooking – “yesterday, I had a sandwich for lunch” she tells me proudly. But today I’m on a mission, and not to be distracted. I’m to ask her a simple question: coffee or tea?

“Coffee” is the resounding answer from Ziyin. I might have guessed this from the two coffe cups in front of her (one sit in, the other take away – a one for the road affair?). “But my parents’ generation can’t stand the taste, they only drink tea.” Behind Ziyin, I notice another Beida student who has been eavesdropping and ask her opinion. “I also like tea better. In fact, I think most Chinese don’t like the taste of coffee.”

This was what I had been expecting to hear. In my experience, students at my old university Beida were much more likely to be clutching a thermos of tea in the library or lecture-hall than a cup of coffee, which is famously scarce in China. But it seems that some campus necessities transcend cross-oceanic palettes. Both Ziyin, her neighbour, and a variety of other contacts I put this question to at Beida agreed on one thing: most Chinese students drink coffee for its caffeine benefits more than for its taste.

“Ao ye” (熬夜) is a Chinese phrase often heard on campus. It translates literally as “boil the night”, or more correctly as “stew [oneself] through the night”. The pressure on students to perform at China’s top university is intense: it is not an exaggeration to say that many if not most students work well over ten hours a day. To sustain (or ‘stew’) themselves through those all-nighters, coffee is a popular solution. For the large part, this means instant coffee packets (generally one yuan a pop) or chilled coffee bought in cans from vending machines on campus.

This isn’t to say that there is no ‘coffee culture’ among students, besides this starkly utilitarian approach to caffeine. I chatted with Ziyin in a popular undergoround coffee house on a central location on campus, right next to Beida’s main auditorium. ‘Café Paradiso’ was established in 2006, and obviously fills a gap in the student market. It is pointedly Western: its walls plastered with movie posters (‘Cinema Paradiso’ their flagship), 50s jazz simpering out from the stereo system. Ziyin loves it for all these reasons, and for its tasty coffee (cheapest cup: ‘Daily Coffee’ for 5 yuan; most expensive: ‘Ice Caramel Macchiato’ for 25).

But Ziyin admits she is an exception. A large proportion of the patrons at ‘Café Paradiso’ are foreign students, or Chinese meeting them for language exchange. The majority of Beida’s Chinese student population will meet each other in dorms or restaurants and not in these expensive, copy-cat coffee houses (whose appeal as ‘fashionable’ on merit of their looking Western has been fading ever since the 80s). Outside of the ‘ao ye’ culture, when Chinese students are drinking non-alchoholic beverages purely to relax, tea or ice tea is still King.

As I visited the various types of retail outlets that sell alcohol in Beijing, I started to notice something. An increasingly amount of retailers are dedicating shelf space to grape wine.  Don’t get me wrong, wine still lives in the shadows of bai jiu and beer in terms of consumption in China.  However, wines are definitely making their presence known in the aisles and shelves of supermarkets, convenience stores and specialty shops.

I especially took notice of this in my neighborhood, Wudaokou. Wudaokou is located in the Northwest part of Beijing, where there is a high concentration of universities. Within kilometers, we have Peking University and Tsinghua University, often compared to as the Harvard and MIT of China. I suppose Wudaokou’s US equivalent would be Harvard Square? A year ago, I had to trek across town to find a bottle of wine. Not anymore.

Every neighborhood in China has a local convenience store that is within walking distance and is stocked with all of your basic needs. Up until now, my local shop only carried bai jiu and beer. Now they offer 3 local brands of red wine. Though, had I not been in the beverage aisle, I would have mistaken it for soy sauce.

The two main supermarkets in my neighborhood might have carried wine but if they did, I didn’t see it. Now, its hard to not notice the shelves of wine sharing an aisle with the shelves of bai jiu.

The specialty tobacco and liquor shops typically carry more tobacco than liquor. And the liquor is often limited to just bai jiu. The Changers Tobacco and Wine shop located at the south gate of Tsinghua University, has remodeled and built a wine corner with Wudaokou’s largest collection of imported wines.

Even the 7-11 in Wudaokou has decided to carry grape wine, both local and imported brands. As a matter of fact, you can now place your order for this years harvest of Beaujolais Nouveau at 7-11.

What is even more impressive than the selection of wine I now have at my disposal. Is the dedicated sales staff in these aisles. I applaud the effort local brands and their distributors are making to train staff, so they can inform consumers and make recommendations. Even the cashier at the 7-11 was able to highlight the uniqueness of Beaujolais Nouveau. I was impressed with the pitch but not the price.

The 60th anniversary was a momentous occasion for China. It was a celebration of the great strides China has made over the past 60 years. Whether you are in support of the government, apathetic, or question its legitmacy, it was a moment to reflect and celebrate the past 60 years. Yes, it was part military parade and I have read numerous articles over here Stateside that the parade was meant to be a show of force and economic might, and if you were in the US during that time, I understand how you may have gotten that impression as noted in the following from ABC News:

The highlight of the parade was undoubtedly the dazzling display of military hardware. Rows of tanks rumbled through the square, followed by more than 50 new types of weapons — all made in China — including intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear capabilities. The demonstration was punctuated by 151 planes blazing through the sky, some trailing brightly colored smoke.

But as the Atlantic’s James Fallows, who has both lived and reported extensively about China, points out,

For each regiment of goosestepping female soldiers, all exactly the same height and with skirts exactly the same length, there has been a group of Clean Energy workers, accompanying a display of wind turbines and solar panels — or a group of athletes from the Phys Ed university.

In the end, it is not too useful to debate the merits of various media perspectives as the anniversary has now come and gone. The bigger picture I have taken from this recent trip is the assumed knowledge all of us working on the ground in China have about the rest of the world’s view on China. Here at enoVate we will continue to bring the detailed and nuianced China perpectives that our clinets on the ground require but we will also take a step back every once and a while and give some more general feedback on the large issues and forces at play.

In closing, here are a few great links and an awesome video from the parade:

• National Day – The view from beida. A westerners perspective in Beijing during the 60th anniversary celebration through six local youth perspectives. Great insights and a blog to watch (thanks Joey).
• 60th Anniversary Hangover. A comparison of the 60th anniversary to the movie The Hangover. Hilarious.
• Shooting China’s 60th Anniversary Day Parade. Awesome time-lapsed video. (posted many places now but saw it first on China Music Radar)

1. Beijing Fashion Sports Park

Beijing Fashion Sports Park is located in the Daxing District of Beijing. It covers an area of over 8000 square meters. American extreme sports camp company Woodward is one of the main investors. The whole area includes skateboard parks, a U skateboarding pool, and other areas for BMX, Aggressive In-line Skating, motorcycle, women’s gymnastics, and even a trampoline!

2. Shanghai New Jiangwan City SMP Skateboard Park
Shanghai New Jiangwan City SMP Skateboard Park takes up over 12,000 square meters! SMP features areas for surfing, skateboarding, small wheel bicycles, water sports and other extreme sports. It is not only China’s first extreme sports theme park, but also one of the largest extreme sports theme parks in the world.

3. Changzhou Qingfeng Park Extreme Sports Field
The project of Changzhou Qingfeng Park fully embodies sports, vitality, and other features. Their skateboarding, mountain climbing and street basketball courts are built from international standards.

4. Jiuhua Mountain Park Extreme Sports Center
Jiuhua Mountain Park Extreme Sports Center is equipped with rock climbing, base jumping and other extreme sports, so that extreme sports fans have a unique place to meet new people and share their experiences.

5. Shenyang Extreme SportsTheme Park
Shenyang Extreme SportsTheme Park is located in Shenyang’s Zhongshan Park, with an area of over 8,000 square meters. The park boasts areas for skating, street basketball, BMX, rock climbing, and over 26 other extreme sports! Total investment of the park was over 300 million RMB.

For a while now, streetwear fashion, in particular expensive Japanese brands, have had a strong following amongst young Chinese boys (enoVate newsletter subscribers will have seen evidence of this in our street shots segment). Whether real of fake, high end street style brands such as visvim, clot, neighbourhood are all seen as items of exclusivity and can often be seen being worn by Hong Kong, Taiwanese and mainland trendsetters and celebrities alike.

www.dunk.com.cn is a Beijing based online streetwear retailer. While they are official stockists of certain brands such as nike and adidas, they also resell more exclusive brands, hard to find limited edition sneakers and apparel. Shops such as these give young Chinese men the opportunity to get their hands on goods normally limited to a handful of select stores around the globe.

Original retail values are steep, add to this the re-seller fee and prices can be astronomical. Particularly popular are collaboration pieces such as the clot x visvim christo sandals. Eagle eyed trend watchers will certainly have noticed these bulky and technical looking sandals in all of Shanghai’s and Beijings most popular shopping areas.  The website offers the cheapest pair for a measly 5999RMB, while the most expensive (already sold out) costs a stomach-turning 11800RMB.

Online shopping isn’t only about snapping up bargains or cheap ways to buy common goods. To emulate the styles of idols such as Edison Chen or Li Chen, young boys are willing to part with thousands of RMB. These items may be limited to the purchasing power of a select few but it shows the realm of possibility for luxury brands and the upper limits of the spending power amongst the Chinese youth.

Fixed gear bikes are popular because of their simple design, their customizable attributes and their functionality. Riders can swiftly and deftly maneuver through urban streets without worrying about gears or braking. Slightly dangerous yes, but risk only adds to the youth counter-cultural appeal.

Fixed gear bikes are nothing new in terms of bike technology, but their popularity in small pockets of Chinese sub-cultural groups began to emerge in Beijing and Shanghai in 2008. Some people may view this simply as a trend proliferated by foreigners, but we also see strong growth potential among local Chinese markets.

Several international brands have begun to align themselves with the local Chinese fixed gear movement, such as Adidas, Oakley, and Microsoft by sponsoring a local Beijing fixed gear bike event, titled “Beijing Fixed Gear Revolution”.

In Chinese, there are three ways fixed gear biking is expressed. Most often used is the English, “fixed gear”. A more technical term is 齿轮固定车, or literally “gear fixed bike”, and the term coined by the Beijing Fixed Gear Revolution group is 死飞, or “dead fly[wheel]“.

We’ve identified three reasons brands should keep an eye on the fixed gear bike revolution in China:

• Fixed Gear Bikes are customizable and easy to personify. They help to add missing elements of a Ge Xing and fashionable lifestyle to an otherwise traditional method of transportation.
• Biking is something that resonates with both young and old generations. Parents are less likely to discourage their child from riding a fixed gear bike because they know and understand bicycles.
• Fixed Gear Bikes are conducive for urban environments where biking is already and always permitted, so it is perhaps less frowned upon compared to other action sports.

We will be tracking the growth of fixed gear biking in China to see if it can transcend into the lower tier Chinese cities, which is imperative if it is to see massive growth.