You are all invited to attend the public opening of ‘China Normal’, China Youthology’s exhibition of 3rd & 4th Tier City research findings. ‘China Normal’ is a compilation of photography, documentary film, and research findings. Come and meet the China Youthology team, starting at 11am.

Then stay from 2pm to 4pm for the 8th Butter Youth Conference!

Listen to the stories of 6 young people, sharing questions/ thoughts/ ideas, and catching up with Youthologists. ‘Let’s spread!’

WHAT IS SPECIAL THIS TIME?

• Youth Conference’ is a part of ‘Festival Young’ by Sohu.com (搜狐艺文节): http://cul.sohu.com/festivalyoung/
• China Youthology Fund (青年志基金) introduction with a preview of the 1st project
• Two ‘Returning Speakers’ sharing their on-going/ finished project

WHAT IS BUTTER YOUTH CONFERENCE?

Butter Youth Conference is monthly held events for youth to talk about what they aspire, what they fear, what inspires them. It is not a gathering of elites, but a platform for diversity of youthfulness, and hopefully a platform for marketers to know more about what youth care to talk about.
More info: http://chinayouthology.com/blog/?p=869

Why Butter? Check out an video introduction about Butter Youth Conference here:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTU3MjU5NjIw.html

David, 19-yrs-old, freestyle MC/ 大卫，19岁，Freestyle 说唱

• Tag: freestyle MC/ freestyle 说唱
• The world in the eyes of one of the youngest freestyle MC/ 作为中国最年轻的自由说唱者，大卫有什么想法和看法

Mie, 21-yrs-old, university student/ 小咩，21岁，大学生

• Tag: anxieties and reflections as she grows up 成长的困惑和反思
• As a participant of China Youthology’s lower tier youth research, Xiaomie will share her thinking about her life after seeing more possibilities of youth. 她将会分享参与三线城市青年研究项目的过程中，目睹不同的青春，引起的困惑和反思。

Ray, 24-yrs-old, animation artist/ 雷磊，24岁，动画艺术家

• Tag: animation 动画
• He is going to share his story of pursuing animation artist dream. 分享自己如何实现动画梦想。

Li Wei, 25-yrs-old, cats house owner/ 李伟，25岁，猫咪客栈主人

• Tag: stray cat rescue 流浪猫收养
• His plan and story of rescuing stray cat. 从收养流浪猫到开了猫咪客栈，再到猫咪会客厅，想让更多人关注流浪猫救助。

– Returning Speakers –

Xiaoshi, 24-yrs-old, freelance photographer/ 小狮，24岁，自由摄影师

• Tag: photography, youth culture observation 摄影，青年文化观察
• She just spent about one month traveling around six cities. She will share pictures and stories of the post 80s girls she met on the trip. 花了近一个月经历六个城市拍摄当地姑娘，聆听他们的故事，将会分享她所接触的80后故事。

Liu Yang, 24-yrs-old, rock&roll freak/ 刘洋，24岁，摇滚乐爱好者

• Tag: rock & roll, documentary film 摇滚乐，记录片
• He is shooting a documentary film of different rock&roll freaks’ life trying to show the positive impact of rock. 分享正在拍摄的摇滚记录片－因为喜欢摇滚乐，想要让更多的人感受到摇滚乐精神的正面力量

All presentations will be in Chinese.

WHERE?


No. 23, Chaibang Hutong, Andingmennei Street, Dong Cheng District, Beijing
北京东城区安定门内大街柴棒胡同23号


Looking forward to seeing you!

Filed under: China Youthology News, Creative culture, Lower tier youth, Qing Gong Guan, What's Up?, Butter Youth Conference, China Youthology News, Lower tier youth, Youth Conference, Youthology Festival, Youthology Fund | Post a comment

Rocking in the Forbidden City Documentary Film Project

by George Zhao

I moved to China exactly one year ago, and since then I’ve met a number of peculiar, vibrant, fresh individuals who are at the forefront of change within the Chinese creative community, individuals that genuinely surprise me with the conversations that we have, about the way that they view the world, about the way that they view themselves, about the way that they view things like art and hip hop and modern twenty-first century living.

For me, this journey has been one of personal growth and self-discovery; growing up as a Chinese kid in America has me poised somewhere between two cultures, constantly digging deeper to find my roots. Dance has become an integral piece of the puzzle of my identity, and when I meet dancers from around the world, we share a common bond; in another sense, we’re worlds apart. This seeming contradiction is what creates the space for a mutually beneficial dialogue to occur.

The search for identity is at the basis of this documentary film project. I will be spending time with members of Beijing’s oldest breakdance crew, the Forbidden City Rockers, in an effort to find out who these individuals are both inside and outside of the dance community. By documenting their lives on film, I hope to paint a portrait of these individuals that explores the following questions:

What are the stories of these individuals? How did they arrive at the present day, and what direction do they see themselves heading in the future? What are their hopes, dreams, and aspirations?

In what ways has their involvement with dancing allowed them to surpass their limits, and in what ways has it limited them?

How do they see themselves? How is their identity shaped? What are the various pieces of their identity, and how do they come together or come into conflict with each other?

What do they do in their day-to-day existence, and what purpose do these actions play in their lives? Who are their friends and family? How do their friends and family view them, and vice versa?

As of now, I’ve spent a lot of time at the Rock City dance studio in Sanlituan, and spent a day shadowing the life of b-girl Melon of the Forbidden City Rockers. This week, I’ll be following around Yao, an extremely talented b-boy and the youngest member of the Forbidden City Rockers.
More to come!

—

George Zhao is a visiting independent researcher working alongside China Youthology and is one of the first scholars to take part in the China Youthology Academy program.  The Youthology Academy is set up to assist, train, and equip aspiring researchers to do quality research about China’s Youth.  China Youthology cooperates with researchers to refine the research methodology, help find the most suitable research subjects, and add insights to the research analysis.  The resultant report, film, exhibition, work, is a collaborative product with credit shared between the researcher and the Youthology Academy.

Filed under: China Youthology News, Creative culture, Dance, Music, Youthology Academy | 2 Comments

By Lisa Li

What does basketball mean to Chinese youth? What does ‘dream’ mean? What does it take to be true to your dream?

Aug 7th, we went to the Nike Basketball event.There were basketball games, MC, street dance… and a lot of youth with their dream and passion about basketball. MC J-fever and MC 5U (a street basketball grass-root star) did a great job articulating their passion about basketball and pursuit of dream/freedom through music. Ryan’s video below gives you a feel.

And another video by MOGO.CN: an interview about this song ‘较劲’ here.

Filed under: Creative culture, Sports, What's Up?, basketball, hip-hop, Lisa Li, MC J-fever, Nike, Ryan Zhang, video | Post a comment

By Lisa Li

Hello, Shanghai!「Butter Youth Conference」comes to Shanghai for the 1st time! ^_^

Time: 14:30 – 16:00PM, August 15th (Sun)
Venue: TBWA\Shanghai, 9/F, 71 West Suzhou Road, 200041, Shanghai. TBWA上海，上海市静安区西苏州路71号7-9楼 (Great thanks to TBWA for offering a fantastic space for the conference!)

Welcome to come listening to the stories of 6 young people, sharing questions/ thoughts/ ideas, and catching up with youthologists. ‘Let’s spread!’

* Updated: J-fever（小老虎）, the freestyle MC (national champion）will fly to Shanghai and join us as the special guest to give a speech on his story with the street basketball community！

WHAT IS BUTTER YOUTH CONFERENCE?

Butter Youth Conference is monthly held events for youth to talk about what they aspire, what they fear, what inspires them&hellip It is not a gathering of elites, but a platform for diversity of youthfulness, and hopefully a platform for marketers to know more about what youth care to talk about.
More info: http://chinayouthology.com/blog/?p=869

Why Butter? Check out an video introduction about Butter Youth Conference here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTU3MjU5NjIw.html

SPEAKERS: （All presentations will be in Chinese.）

Read more of this article…

Filed under: China Youthology News, Butter Youth Conference | Post a comment

By Kevin Lee

Yesterday August the 8th, in the pristine courtyards of Ch’ienmen23, marked the third anniversary of “The mARkeT”, an exhibition initiated by The Beijing Center for the Arts (BCA) and co-hosted by BCA and TimeOut Beijing this year. This event showcases local young artists with the goal of providing them a platform to exchange ideas and forever being an independent, creative voice for the contemporary art community.

This year The mARkeT’s theme is “I am…”, an opportunity for all participants to dive into self-expression and self-reflection, wherever that journey may lead.

China Youthology feels privileged being invited to take part in this exhibition. As we had just finished a research of youth in lower tier cities, we took this special opportunity to showcase some of the images and stories we captured during our travels. We chose to title our exhibition ‘I’m … China’s Normal Youth’, a name reflecting the compilation of lower-tier young personalities we met.

Our exhibition shows some of the photos taken by Go Takayama, a Japanese-American photographer who is spending the next few years in China on some personal creative projects, you can check out Go’s website at << http://www.gotakayamaphoto.com/>>. In addition to the photos, we have a short documentary video compiled by Jay Mark Caplan. Both of these elements made for an immersive experience where people stopped to read, watch and breath China Normal Youth!

Previously we’ve shared some fieldwork notes about the lower tier youth research on the blog. Many friends ask us about the progress of this research. Currently we are building a website where we’ll share our paper, photos, as well as documentary films. At the end of Aug, we’ll launch a full exhibition in our own space in Beijing. We’ll keep you posted!

The BCA yesterday was buzzing with excitement as the entire space filled with gallery-patrons scuttling around to see all the fresh exhibitions. The evening ended with several astounding musical performances by well known music artists such as XiaoHe and B6. As we lay on the grass, looking up into the warm summer Beijing night sky, listening to the music, we thought of all the new and profound sights and sounds we had experienced that day… and relished in being in the midst of China Youth’s creative world.

The mARkeT is on at the Beijing Center for the Arts everyday until August 26, 2010.

Filed under: China Youthology News, Creative culture, Fashion & visual arts, Lower tier youth, art, BCA, Kevin Lee, Lower tier youth | Post a comment

By Candy

The 6th Butter Youth Conference will be held on 14:30 – 16:00PM, June 27th (Sunday) in Qing Gong Guan (our office), Beijing!

Welcome to come listening to the stories of 6 young people, sharing questions/ thoughts/ ideas, and catching up with youthologists. ‘Let’s spread!’

(Douban page of this event:http://www.douban.com/event/12110493/）

WHAT IS BUTTER YOUTH CONFERENCE?

Butter Youth Conference is monthly held events for youth to talk about what they aspire, what they fear, what inspires them&hellip It is not a gathering of elites, but a platform for diversity of youthfulness, and hopefully a platform for marketers to know more about what youth care to talk about.
More info: http://chinayouthology.com/blog/?p=869

Why Butter? Check out an video introduction about Butter Youth Conference here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTU3MjU5NjIw.html

SPEAKERS:

Read more of this article…

Filed under: China Youthology News, Qing Gong Guan, What's Up?, Butter Youth Conference, CG, China youth culture, cosplay, economical traveler, social entrepreneur, social participant | 1 Comment

By Lisa Li

The slides below are the presentation China Youthology did on the preconference ‘US & Global Youth & Youth Marketing’ of Ypulse Mashup Youth Marketing Conference 2010 in San Francisco.

With this 20-min speech, we talked about current youth marketing communication messages and how deeper cultural understanding of youth can lead to communication messages that resonate.

Aside from the ‘dreams and desires’ of youth, it is equally important to understand the ‘anxieties and contradictions’. Insights into the macro context is especially critical to understand youth, especially in a fast-changing society.

Thanks Ypulse for inviting us to the conference. It was a lot of learnings!

Filed under: China Youthology News, Methodology, So What?, conference, Lisa Li, presentaiton, Youth marketing, Ypulse Mashup, Zafka Zhang | Post a comment

By Go Takayama

This is part of a series of posts ‘Demystifying Lower Tier China’.

It was already late evening as a taxi drove me from an airport in the city of Xuzhou. From a hotel we stayed about five minutes walk, there was a construction site at one corner of an intersection where I saw a white logo growing in the dark said ‘Wal-Mart.’ I shouldn’t surprise anymore seeing a global corporation like Wal-Mart in the low tier cities of China (Wal-Mart now has over 146 stores in China, covering 86 cities). After my first couple days in Xuzhou, I came to realize that my presumption of Xuzhou in many ways of an ‘underdevelopment low tier third city’ didn’t quite fit.

In fact, the city still remains being underdevelopment in terms of its infrastructure, economy, transportation, as well as city culture such as nightlife, entertainment, dining and etc. But what went wrong about my prejudgement revealed some of the fast growing youth culture in Xuzhou. I met a bunch of hi-hop dancers, skateboarders, a freestyle rapper, groupies, and rollerbladers. Besides this, a boy at a local music contest, who wore colored contact lens, and high school kids hanging out in a TV idol shop raised my awareness of the city’s growing potential for the youth culture.

While young people in Xuzhou enjoy more matured youth culture than some of previous cities I visited, the city has one mutual thing, that keeps discovering in every low tier city. It’s a circumstance, in which youths get confused about their life, and lack of a dream or aspiration while living under continuous pressure from their parents. This absence of a sense of purpose deepens their inadequate self-esteem, motivation, and confidence. As the city develops, enriching social life and entertainment, there might be counter increase of youths, who feel being left out or get lost in the fast transforming city.

(click on the photos for original size photos)

01. Wang Lu Qiao, 16, a freshman of Xuzhou Wenhua YiShu Xuexiao high school, stretches her body at the end of her gymnastic class in the afternoon. In the school, variety of dance lessons are offered such as hip-hop, ballet, and Chinese national dance.

Read more of this article…

Filed under: Lower tier youth, What's Up?, China youth culture, Go Takayama, lower tier cities, photo | Post a comment

By Go Takayama

This is part of a series of posts ‘Demystifying Lower Tier China’.

A graveled and muddied path on the way to Jilin from Changchun airport made me wonder more than once that if I would ever get to something like a ‘city.’ This may be an exaggerative explanation, but without speaking a local language and driving the dirt road of bumps and potholes in between fields and mountains, you may ask the same question I did; Is there Tier 3 city in the road ahead of us? About forty minutes later, a friendly driver jumped on a highway, which seemed lots more legitimate road to the city we were supposed to go.

To me, the city of Jilin gets more colorful, vibrant, and exciting especially at a night. It starts with a sunset at the dusk. A river running along the city reflects warm pinkish sunset orange, which soon fills the entire city. Meanwhile, the city neon begins to grow, giving the city more primary color of the red, green, and blue against fading pink sky. In the city, after around 6 p.m., a night bazaar stretches several blocks long reaches its peak, satisfying all kinds of visitors’ appetite offering with seafood, noodle, BBQ, and more.

So far, lower the size of city is, more valued the traditional cultures are. For instance, an arrange marriage and family oriented decision making are the value still remain firm in a low tier family. Nevertheless, the value of a relationship has begun drifting by the youth, who can independently find a love and start dating in their earlier age. A student from Dangbei Dianli Xueyuan told that one third of his classmates are currently in the relationship.

As the city develops and its society becomes matured, I would assume that we will see more of those cultural and social value that will shift accordingly. And in China, once it gets on a track, it will go really fast.

(click on the photos for original size photos)

01. The elderly Jilin locals gather in a park early morning to do dancing and exercising. Nearly 50 participants with colorful costumes try to stay active and healthy.

02. A couple tries to take a picture of themselves beside the monument, Qingchun (youthfulness), in a river bank park.

Read more of this article…

Filed under: Lower tier youth, What's Up?, China youth culture, Go Takayama, lower tier cities, photo | Post a comment

By  Jay Mark Caplan

This is part of a series of posts ‘Demystifying Lower Tier China’.

In growing low tier cities, people are looking for different ways to spend their money. Why wait for international brands and franchises? Enterprising locals are already providing enticing new products and services.

Local businesses that establish new categories in low tier cities currently represent a small market. But these entrepreneurs are testing the waters, and when they succeed, leading trends.

We interviewed owners and managers from fitness centers, luxury salons, outdoor adventure tours, break dance studios, and cafes, as well as their customers and potential customers, to find out what makes new categories work in small cities.

Deluxe Individuality

No matter what new product or service arrives in low tier cities, a certain demographic is going to be attracted just because it’s something different.

“My friends and I been to every café and restaurant in Yiyang,” says He Xingwen (30), Yiyang native and foreign- educated marketing professional. “If Starbucks came, of course we would go there.”

The problem is the significant drop off in purchase when something else comes along.

So how do local entrepreneurs earn loyalty? By educating their customers in new behaviors, behaviors that create a sense of self worth and individuality.

Since when do low tier youth care about individuality? Low tier youth may tend to prefer blending in with peers to standing out, but that seems to change fast with marketization. In Xuzhou, where the retail scene is very developed, youth we surveyed valued being special, specifically having a special personal style.

Read more of this article…

Filed under: Lower tier youth, So What?, China youth, Entrepreneurs, Jay Mark Caplan, lower tier cities, lower tier market, Lower tier youth | Post a comment