Assignment 3(Part 2)- Article 2
Posted by: yingh777 on: November 9, 2009
SHOPPING GUIDE for HYPEBEAST.COM
Where to buy Vans sneakers in Shanghai?
There has been a discussion in our forum regarding where to shop for Vans sneakers in Shanghai. So here is a shopping guide for anyone who is still interested in searching for Vans in this booming city. Some of the places are really worth exploring and will definitely make your shopping experience more interesting.
Vans Flagstaff Store
Address: 706 Chang Le Rd
Opening Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-10pm, Sunday 10am-6pm
Transportation: Metro Line 1 — Huai Hai Zhong Rd
The store is located on the Chang Le Rd, the best place for authentic streetwear in Shanghai. The two-storey store was open in 2008 and decorated with a theme of 70s American street culture. In the shop you can find the latest released Vans shoes, clothes and accessories, and some of the items are sold exclusive in Vans Shanghai. You may also notice that many other trendy streetwear brands like BAPE, Nike Air Force, Adidas Y-3 and CLOT all have retail shops on the same street.
Vas@Shanghai (Source: www.skatehere.com)
Vans Outlet
Address: Shanghai Pudong Airport, near Terminal 2
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 9am-6pm
Transportation: Metro Meglev Line, Airport Bus
Vans Outlet offers a wide range of the brand’s classic slip-ons and tied sneakers at discounted prices. Its location makes it a good choice for people who stay in Shanghai for very short time but still keen for a pair of Vans sneakers. However, the styles in stock are mainly from past seasons and it is common that the shoes you’d like to buy do not have your size. So, do search very carefully, and we wish you good luck there!
Vans Shop @ DiMei Shopping Market
Address: underground, People’s Square Station
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 10am-9pm
Transportation: Metro Line 1/Line 2/ Line 8 – People’s Square
This is probably the most famous unofficial Vans shop in Shanghai. It is pretty tiny in terms of its scale but started to gain people’s attention years before Vans had its first official store in Shanghai. The owner is said to have good connections with the Chinese shoe factory producing Vans sneakers to be sold in the U.S and other overseas market. So basically this is a shop for leftover sneakers that somehow didn’t make their way overseas. When entering the shop you will be surprised by the variety of styles it offers, so take your time. One more thing, do remember to use your bargaining skills after you decide to buy anything there.
Fantasy skateboard shop
Address: Corner of Zhong Shang Bei Yi Rd and Da Lian Xi Rd
Opening Hours: 9:00-6:00 Mon-Fri
Transportation: Metro Line 3 – Hong Kou Football Stadium
“Fantasy” is within the university district of Shanghai. The owner is a huge fan of skateboarding and used to participate in international competitions. The shop sells professional skateboarding facilities and also Vans sneakers of limited edition– some of them belong to the owner’s personal collection. So, if you share the same interest with the shop owner, you might as well pay a visit to his shop and see if you can find the next pair for your Vans collection.
Lulu’s @ Hong Ji Square
Address: 188 Sichuan Rd
Opening Hours: 9:00-6:00 Mon-Fri
Transportation: Metro Line 3 – Bao Shan Rd
This shop is famous among trendy people in Shanghai and even a lot of Asian celebrities. As you can always find the latest Vans sneakers featured in major Japanese, Hong Kong or Korean fashion magazines in the shop. The owner is a girl who has a very good taste of fashion, and the majority of sneakers in her shop are from Vans dealers based in other Asian countries, so some of the styles are quite unique and only have one or two pairs. Another good thing about the shop: if you would like to buy a particular pair of Vans that is only available in other Asian countries but don’t bother to travel there, the shop can also acts as a purchasing agent for you and charges very reasonable extra price.
Assignment 3(part 2)- Article 1
Posted by: yingh777 on: November 9, 2009
BLOG POST for HYPEBEAST.COM
“Don’t addict me, I know it’s heaven.
Don’t talk about political, I know it’s hell…”
———-New York City by Brain Failure
I went to the gig of Brain Failure with my friend the other night (22th Oct). Brain Failure is one of the best known Chinese rock bands and has been around for almost ten years. The gig was part of 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival, and the Beijing-based band was also backed by one Australian band The Go Set and rock singer Goldie Lux. Strong political orientation, expression of frustration within the changing urban landscape, plus a bit of innovation or a sense of black humour would be a summary of the spirit of Rock and Roll in China, while Brain Failure happens to be a representative of that spirit.
(Souce:http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/)
I was actually a bit surprised by the venue and its atmosphere when I first got to the gig place. I expected the gig to be held in a sort of “underground” places like a pub or even a renovated garage, with people crowding around the stage and concentrating on the performance at anytime, as that’s what a gig is like in China. While this venue, the Forum Theatre on Flinders Street, is a huge place with sofas, bars and plenty of room for people to walk around with drinks and socialise with each other. I feel that while rock music might be a form of collective expression under the social context of China, it seems to be more about a way of lifestyle here in Melbourne.
Brain Failure’s show started with the vocal Xiao Rong repeatedly murmured “Come… come…. to see the city of Beijing” in Mandarin in the total darkness with strong bass in the background. Then the spotlight moved slowly to capture a Chinese girl playing pipa- a Chinese musical instrument in the middle of the stage. The audience was all attracted by this kind of arrangement and came to gather around the stage, when suddenly all the lights went on and Brain Failure began to rock people with their song “Living in the City”. The inclusion of pipa seemed to be a new experiment they band wanted to try in this performance and was actually impressive.
Language was not a big problem for Brain Failure’s performance as a good number of their songs are written in a mix of Chinese and English, and the band tour internationally quite often. The three-hour performance included some of the band’s classic songs, such as “One Coward”, “Stay Free”, as well as some new ones. During an English rap Xiao Rong improvised some lyrics by incorporating their experience of this trip to Melbourne, like “we come from the east but this is “the place to be”’, “We were nearly ‘paralyzed’ got off the plane, but feel bloody alive seeing you”, which all generated a wave of screaming among the crowd down the stage. The climax was reached at the song “Anarchy in the P.R.C”, when everybody waved their hands and shouted “An-ar-chy” with the band together. In the final song, the guitarist Gao thanked the audience with an awesome 30-second guitar solo.
After three-hour of shouting and rocking, we left the theatre all half-deaf and half-mute. It is a really cool thing to experience the spirit of Beijing rock in a place far from China.
Some Photos taken at the gig:
Pipa + Rock Crossover:
Vocal Xiao Rong:
Xiao Rong + Gao:
And also, check out this Interview with the vocal Xiao Rong before the Melbourne performance.
Web 3.0 Asia?
Posted by: yingh777 on: October 15, 2009
I have mentioned the decreasing popularity of the term “Web 2.0”, this brief speech by google CEO Eric Schmidt in Seoul Digital Forum might provide us with a more concrete evidence.
According to him, Web 3.0 is “applications that are pieced together. They are relatively small…very fast and customizable, and distributed virally…” I looked up for some other definitions about Web 3.0, it has been frequently referred as a form of “semantic web”, with applications that tailored to the specific individual’s needs. It is not necessarily restricted to specific web sites or services, but is more invisible and embedded in our everyday life.
What I’m concerned about is how such new form of web construction might influence the Asian web system, as it is based on highly customizable feature and rapid communication, would it make people more connected to each other, or further separate them as distinctive individuals? With its penetration into everyday life, would it bring about more freely expressed content, or actually be applied as a new system of censorship? And as for its feature of viral distribution, would it become a network that is truly global or actually generates networks that are more locally focused? Anyway, looking forward to the spread of this new wave of technical revolution.
Tokyo SOWN 2009
Posted by: yingh777 on: October 15, 2009
My friend was invited to attend this event called “Sense of Wonder Night” (SOWN). This event was a part of 2009 Tokyo Game Show, and she described it as “amazing and inspiring”. Personally I’m not a fan of video games, but I went to check the website of this event and found it pretty interesting.
Basically, “Sense of Wonder Night” was started in 2008, according to its official website, it aims to
- To introduce games with a game design and ideas that are experimental and creative, and that cannot be called conventional or traditional
- To heighten awareness of the importance of creating a game that gives people a “sense of wonder”, a sense that something will change in their world, and to invigorate the game industry
- To offer people creating experimental games opportunities for the future
- To create new domains in the game industry
Having watched some presentations regarding the video games that won awards in SOWN, I think this event is a very good chance for people to dig what is behind the production of innovative video games, and gain an idea of the game developers’ brainstorming process. Not only did this event reveal these production concepts embedded in these awesome video games to the audience, it also brought the discussion to the next level by exploring the possible potential of these concepts in shaping people’s thoughts and perceptions within many other cultural areas such as architectural, music, advertising industries.
Here is a game titled Hazard — The Journey Of Life developed by Alexander Bruce from Australia.
Check out the presentation of this game:
& the Trailor of the game:
Just Plane Thoughts by Malaysian Brand AirAsia
Posted by: yingh777 on: October 14, 2009
I found this interesting site while navigating through the Malaysian AirAsia website. The company innovatively embedded this blog called Just Plane Thoughts into its customer service website.
(Source: AirAsia)
It is like a digital version of those magazines offered by airplane company for you to read while sit on the plane. In this blog, the readers (not just AirAsia customers) can submit blog posts related to their travel experiences. They feature a wide range of topics like shopping and dining accounts as well as experiences in airports around the world. Some posts also include personal photos and videos. The blog also provide information about the company’s latest offer and services, and encourage people to comment on it and provides recommendations for their future improvement (See here). Besides, the blog is also a platform for the company to handle some of their public crisis, as it has posts showing how the corporate deal with people’s complaints and respond to issues related to the damage of corporate’s public image (like this post).
I think the function of this blog involves a mix of public relation and advertising. It plays an important role in presenting the corporate’s respect and responsibility to its current and potential customers. So it can be seen as a good example which incorporates digital social media into corporate business.
For extra example of using digital media for promotion of corporate culture, see my previous posting here. Besides, I found here is also an excellent posting regrading Lipton.
Assignment 3(part 1)- Article 2
Posted by: yingh777 on: October 12, 2009
ARTICLE 2 — Music Review
Asian Mix & Remix: Wilber-Akon collaboration, Soul boy’s “Bad”, and Smoky “Vincent”
Tags: Music, Asia, Wilber Pan, Akon, Khalil Fong, Joanna Wang
Wilber Pan — Heating up the Asian Hip-Hop Scene
It’s hard to image how mandarin lyrics could have chemistry with American rap, but Taiwanese hip-hop singer Wilber Pan and Akon did a good job in their transnational collaboration on the track “Be with You”.
The track is originally from Akon’s 2008 album Freedom, but failed to top the US Billboard chart. However, the remake, which features Wilber raps in mandarin together with Akon actually makes this single a hit among Asian Hip-Hop fans. The Chinese lyric is written by Wilber himself. It concentrates on expressing the meaning of “relationship between two people” as the original version does, and adds a distinct flavour to the song.
While some listeners feel that the collaboration is somehow “wierd” and “commercial”we have to admit that it is still an excellent experiment which brings east and west closer.
Wilber-Akon “Be with You” is included in Wilber’s album 007 released in May 2009. Check out the MV of this single:
Soul Boy not so “Bad”
Hong Kong based R&B singer Khalil Fong did a remake of Michael Jackon’s song “Bad” as a tribute to the recently deceased Pop King.
The good thing about this remake is that Khalil has no intention of duplicating this all-time hit but actually tries to articulate his own music ambitions through it. From this live performance video, we can see that Khalil interprets the song with honesty and creativeness. He downplays the percussion section in the original and associates the song with more smooth and funky feeling. Without the Michael Jackson’s classic dancing steps, Khalil creates a “lighter” version of “Bad” with his electronic guitar and some simple instruments at the background, and tries to impress the audience with the pleasantness and richness of his voice.
The song is included in Khalil’s Album Timeless released in August 2009, and the CD version of the song can be listened here.
Jazz Princess’s New Step
Joanna Wang’s voice was certainly a blast in 2008. When her debut album Starts from Here was released in Taiwan, people were marvelled at the fact that such a mature jazz vocal is actually from a 17-year old Chinese girl. The critics regard her as the “Chinese equivalent of Norah Jones”, and “the best voice in a decade”.
The cover version of Don Mclean’s 1970s classic “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)” in her second album is another remarkable step taken by this Chinese Jazz Princess. In this version, her vocal sounds just as gentle as the original initially, but become irresistibly tempting as the song progresses and the emotion builds up. She interprets the song as if she is telling an old story to you by her smoky and absolutely mellow voice.
While since there are too many versions of ”Vincent” out there, the music video really helps to boost the charm of this cover version. In the MV, Joanna sits beside purely blue sea, and sings with her eyes half open, evoking an atmosphere of absolute peace and calmness. You can almost feel every breath she takes between the lines. It certainly creates more space for you to indulge yourself in the infinite imagination associated with this song.
The cover version is included in Joanna’s 2009 Album Joanna & Wang Ruo-Lin .
Assignment 3(part1)- Article 1
Posted by: yingh777 on: October 12, 2009
The website I write for is Hypebeast (www.hypebeast.com) which is an online magazine for latest fashion news and lifestyle information, with an emphasis on global street and popular culture. Its target audience is mainly people between 15-35 who are interested in up-to-date fashion styles and culture information. My first article is a piece of fashion news regarding Uniqlo, a Japanese fashion brand’s 2009 Winter Collection, and the second article is a music review featuring some newly released Asian singles.
ARTICLE 1– Fashion News
2009 Winter Collection + Fun Interactive Ads by Uniqlo
Tags: Fashion, Uniqlo
We have already introduced Uniqlo’s collaboration with German designer Jil Sander in 2009. Recently, the Tokyo-based casual-wear brand released its 2009 Winter Collection. What is also exciting is that it launched several interactive ads to promote the collection, which enables the consumers to experience its philosophy of “clothes as lifestyle components“in a different way.
Parka jackets in 1000 styles
Parka jacket is the main featured basic in this collection. The jackets come in more than 20 colours. Besides, they are not only made from the conventional cotton material, but also based on a wide range of other materials including polystyrene, elastic fibres, and leather to satisfy various needs.
According to Uniqlo’s executive creative director Koichi Sawada, the design of these jackets is inspired by the richness and freedom of in Tokyo street culture, and he describes them as full of “vibe and fun”. So, together with the “Tokyo Graffiti” publication, staff from Uniqlo went to the streets of Tokyo and asked 1000 men and women of all ages to wear a Uniqlo parka jacket and to make it a part of their daily style. The process of people putting on, and passing along the jacket was recorded and produced as a Parka Relay Movie, which actually provides people with a three-dimensional mix & match guide.
Live Uniqlo Fashion Show
Accessories are also essentials in this season’s collection, which clicks with Uniqlo’s consistent emphasis on the details of style. In this season, Uniqlo features a series of women’s scarves and socks, as well as men’s ties and bags, which all add a delicate touch on the brand’s parka jackets and Japaneses style denims.
Instead of simply presenting these fashion items in a fashion catalogue, Uniqlo launched a 2009 Fashion Show site which features 68 male and female models walking on a cross-shaped runway in these latest items. The scene was captured in three-dimension, so that the viewers are just like sitting beside the show stage.
While the models are walking, there is a style number appearing on the top of each model’s head. Once the viewer clicks on the number, a new page showing this single model walking on the stage will be displayed, with the detailed information of every items worn by the model listed on the side.
Uniqlock Season 6
Women’s cashmere knits are always a classic item in Uniqlo’s collections, this season has no exception. A series of quality high neck knits with delicate cutting and warm colours are still a highlight among all the other items.
Since June 2007, Uniqlo promotes its cashmere knits through this web-based clock widget–Uniqlock, which can be downloaded as a screensaver or embedded in one’s blog. This season continues the concept of “music, dance, clock”, featuring four women in knits dance in sync with the music, and the local time displays on screen every 5 seconds. What is new is that you can customised your own version of the clock according to your time zone, and these women also appear as sleeping when the time goes to night time.
As described in the promotional webpage, “Uniqlock is a 24/7 presentation of UNIQLO clothing”, and the company tries to build its brand awareness internationally through the spread of this widget. It is certainly a pretty innovative way of connecting popular fashion culture and everyday life.
(Pic Source: Uniqlo Japan)
Singapore: Tweet for Treasure
Posted by: yingh777 on: October 5, 2009
One friend invited me to this very interesting Twitter activity started by StarHub, the second largest broadband company in Singapore. The activity is called ‘Great Singapore treasure hunt’. Although the participation of this activity involves both getting clues online and “hunting for treasure” offline in the city of Singapore, I found this activity a very successful case for the broadband company to engage its current and potential customers via social media.
Basically the website releases a new round of task every one or two days via Twitter, the task includes the hunting for “treasure” within CBD of Singapore, and the details of the instructions and clues will be only tweeted to people who joined the twitter group. It usually requires the participants to solve the riddles online with the help of tools such as Google, Flickr, YouTube and Windows Live Messenger. The first person who solve the riddles (by tweeting the answer back) and get to the location where treasure is placed can win a cheque for S$10,000. The “treasure hunt” actually emphasizes the importance of the speed, which is an important part of the brand image of StarHub broadband.
The fans of the activity also have a Facebook group, which is said to have amassing over 25,000 fans in a three-week period and became Singapore’s largest Facebook fan group.
(Pic Source:tweet a treasure in Twitter)
Iphone Asia
Posted by: yingh777 on: September 28, 2009
Iphone has started its expansion of Asia market since 2008, while it seems that there are a number of complex issues they need to take care of at the same time of the launch of this world’s revolutionary smartphone in Asia.
Japan— Aggressive Competitors
Release date: July 11, 2008
( Source: NY Times)
Japan is one of the earliest Asian market targeted by Apple, while its selling in Japan hasn’t been very good compared with other smartphones produced by companies like NEC, SHARP, and PANASONIC. Acccording to a report in 2008, iPhone only made up a tiny portion of Japan’s 115 million cell-phone market. Takeshi Natsuno, the Japan smartphone pioneer who developed Japan’s first Internet-linking cell phone service “i-mode” in 1999, said “smartphone has already reached a very mature market in Japan, so Apple might need to struggle a bit to reach its expected share of Japanese market.”
China – Priracy, better choice?
Relase date: Oct 30, 2009
It is said that the largest ratio of pirated digital application is found in China (37%). Like some people commented, “Chinese don’t wait for Apple launch to get ‘iPhone’ ”. Actually the pirated version usually share a very similar looking of iphone, but integrates with a more local smartphone features such as handy Chinese typing applications, more compatible hardwares, and functions that help to speed up its internet speed under the Chinese telecom network…..and more importantly, their price is usually stunningly low.
(Source:www.iphonasia.com)
South Korea — in the shadow of battery meltdown
Release date: possibly November/December 2009
One of the main reason for the delay of the launch of Iphone in South Korea is related to Apple’s recall of 1st generation iPod nanos in South Korea happened early this year. Since December 2008, four users filed complaints with the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards over bugged iPod Nanos — three of them were for battery meltdowns while recharging. The issue was reported by mainstream Korean media and the pictures of melting Nanos have been circulating on the internet. In June 2009, Apple apologized for their neglect in selling the problem products and issued the recall and later released a statement reassuring owners of current-model Nanos. This incident generates pretty negative brand image and reputation for Apple Korea. As a result, South Korea’s telecommunications regulatory body has not given approval for iPhone to be sold in the country until 23 September 2009, and the actual launch date is still not known.
(Source: http://www.cultofmac.com)
Microblogging in China
Posted by: yingh777 on: September 14, 2009
I’ve mentioned the craze for cloning social networking websites in Asia, but I haven’t realized how many Chinese microblogs are out there until I happened to read this blog post. It lists 5 major popular Chinese microblogs that can be all considered as “clone of Twitter”. Personally I have four accounts out of five, and regularly check them when I have time. In the post it gives a very detail description of the technical features of these blogs, but here I’d like to discuss these blogs in terms of their very distinctive content.
This is one of the most controversial microblogs in China, it provides a platform for many social activists and critical journalists to post links and titles of online reports regarding social issues happened in China that can be rarely accessed from mainstream media. It features a more focused and diverse range of information compared with BBS, and also has more frequent updates compared with personal blogs. Sadly, it has been shut down since July 2009, due to the overwhelming posts as responding to the riots happened between Han and Uyghur ethnic groups in China, and no body knows when we can use our Fanfou accounts again.
This microblog site is a place that belongs to modern Chinese artists and art-lovers. It is a platform where they can share their latest art projects and works by microblogging. It is inevitable that some artistic work involves radical political thinkings and discussion of sensitive issues. Although the website does not face pressure from the govnerment sensorship as much as Fanfou does, it is still common in Douban that a newly-published post might disappears after 2 or 3 hours when you go back to the same page again.
This is a more mainstream microblogging services built in the Tencent social network site. It is also probably the most popular domestic Twitter clones in China due to its close collaboration with the QQ instant messenger (Chinese version of MSN) services So, QQ users can post microblogs directly from the QQ Messengers. Its content is mostly random updates about personal life experiences and is shared within certain friend circle. Besides it is also full of posts of quick questions and answers such as “where is the closet underground station in my area?”
This microblog was initially very similar to Taotao, but with the availabity of its multimedia function, it is becoming more like a website of fans club, with a large number of users used it as a tool to exchange their loved celebrity’s latest information, sharing pictures, songs and uploading videos. Besides, many Chinese celebrities also have their own account to interact with the fans and get themselves up dated, so the website can also be considered a new promotion channel for the celebrities.
