For the past 4 years, Douban has grown from a small site of book reviews into one of the largest social networking sites for highly educated, culturally inclined Chinese netizens. Started by Ah Bei in Beijing, Douban is totally reliant on users to upload information on books they've read, movies they've watched and music they've listened to. Using data mining technology, Douban is able to organize all the content and reviews for easy access and perhaps more importantly, recommend new content...
As part of the global Swatch MTV Playground campaign, Shanghai recently hosted a competition of Chinese creatives who were given 90 minutes to draw / graffiti / produce a work centered around an enormous replica of a Swatch watch.
The campaign organizers’ (Swatch, MTV, and Behance.net) aim – to create the biggest international collective of imaginative minds and designers from around the world. The creatives chosen from Shanghai were a great selection of independent designers, illustra...
Founded in 2007, 360quan has grown into one of the leading social networking sites for Chinese youth of the post 90s generation. The most unique aspects of 360quan are the distincitve "non-mainstream" behavior and "martian language" used by users to show off their personalities.
"Non-mainstream" (非主流) typically refers to the style of pictures that users take, edit in photoshop and upload to 360quan. Japanese style manga is a strong influence in the pictures of girls wh...
Founded in France and reflecting some strand of Martial art, Parkour is dubbed as 'The art of Movement' or "l'art du déplacement". The sport if focused on moving through city scapes and urban mazes using speed and efficiency. Differing from Freerunning, which focuses on acrobatic moves and flash, parkour is a simplified sport that focuses on natural movement and efficiency instead.
The fore-runner and credited founder of Parkour is David Belle who has done the most service in gr...
With conflicting seasons, it's hard to always remember what's going on elsewhere when the weather is hot and the sun is shining. But let's not forget our winter wonderland. What do kids love to do when the days shorten and the mercury drops? Snowboard. An off season sport for skateboarders in particular, snowboarding has been and will be around for a long time. Hard to reach though, the demographic for snowboarding are either located near snow or good falls, such as southern regions of Austr...
o靚模 [lang-mo] also known as pseudo-model, these girls are around 20 years old, wear their dyed hair long, never appear without fake eyelashes and heavy makeup, and cater to male fantasies. This year’s Book Fair at the Convention Centre started city wide controversy over the prominence of the pseudo-model. The annual event, traditionally a family event, attracted hordes of male fans, many considered to be a “tram boy” – the stereotypically introverted ma...
