The future of China

One of the great things about my job, is the need to understand people, what they think, feel and do. So, when you drop a person like me into a foreign place and give me time, I start to explore what the locals are like and what makes them tic.

It means sitting in a restaraunt just watching people (cos I can't understand what they say), can be really interesting. And studying people in research for work, that is even more exciting.

Yesterday I sat through hours of focus groups for one of our clients. The consumers were 19-20 yo uni students and 16-17 yo school students. All guys.

The first funny thing was having a female interpretor. She was a "spontaneous" interpretor, (which is as good as it gets) so she spoke a second after the consumers but said it all in English. (I was impressed) Picture it, 6 boys all talking at 100k/hr with their different voices and all I can hear is a young Chinese lady talking in English. A bit crazy but it makes you concentrate.

Anyway, it was great to hear what Chinese kids do, how they feel about things and so on. Unlike Australian kids, the "One Child" policy in China has had some real impact. As nearly all families have only one child, they create very strong bonds with their closest friends. That sounds obvious, but deep down, the generations of single children families have adapted and it's clear that their best friends are like brothers or sisters. They share the challenges of life and especially of school. These kids work incredibly hard to get through. Start to understand the language and just learning to read and write is enough to amaze.

Then overlay the cultural and traditional influences that are changing so quickly. Just think, it is only 30 years (almost to the day), that the first 'official' recognition that the 'cultural' revolution should cease and was a bad idea. And therefore officially endorsed (of sorts) the changes in direction.

"On December 18, 1978, the pivotal Third Plenum of the Eleventh CCP Congress was held. During the congress Deng famously stated that "a liberation of thoughts" was in order and the party and country needed to "seek truth from facts". Hua Guofeng engaged in self-criticism, stating that his "Two Whatevers" policy was a mistake."

Now the Shanghai University is one of the biggest in the world and education, the arts, literature (and the Olympics) are thriving. So imagine, these kid's parents' at the same age had very limited access to anything really cultural (art /literature/artistic education etc). And when the kids were born, China was just starting to find its feet again.

I sense a feeling of 'catch up' in the culture.

The modern desire to succeed is tempered by the culture of great respect and politeness. On one hand they compete to be better than everyone else but not in an agressive or self centred way. They are smart kids too. At the same time niave. They love brands. They love each other. They want to stay in touch with trends, but not set them. They want to conquer challenges, but do it with friends and not on their own. And I haven't even started on the differences between cities or the differneces between cities and regions.

And the other thing about Shanghai kids - they can all ride a bike!

And my finishing observation to share.

I think someone is really trying me out.

When I arrived, I was annoyed by a billboard I could see cleary out of my apartment window. It was for Jacobs Creek wine and had a big kangaroo on it. Crappy wine and a big roo in the middle of Jing An. And the headline was; "Welcome to our country" It just annoyed me.

I saw it coming down the other day, which made me very happy. Now, I think I am beig given one supersite sized hint. See the pics below. Is someone telling me something? (and there is a Tiffany & Co one block from my apartment). That's just not fair.

(If you can't see, it's a really big solitaire diamond ring)