BuzzandtheCity supports Rachel & Charlie
I wrote about the Amazing Race China Rush here and this is time to get serious.
BuzzandtheCity supports team Rachel & Charlie, not only because they are hot and fun - but because they could win with our support…
Visit link here and vote for the Flirtatious Friends !
Thanks for your votes xx
What's next in Shanghai ?
Coming Soon…one of China’s best reality TV game show the Amazing Race – China Rush !
20 foreigners (10 teams of 2) will be followed across 12 cities in China until the beginning of June for a prize yet to be revealed…but does the award really matter when you just travel for free across China and have the best time with your buddy?
The show produced by Flyfilms will be aired on SMG’s International Channel Shanghai (ICS) this summer, but I can’t wait to already tell you that the starting city is Shanghai and that the hottest team is Rae & Charlie – see their applying video below (on Youtube)
Good luck guys ! xx
Andrew Rowat - Photographer
Andrew Rowat is a photographer. The relation between his background – trained as a marine biologist, and experience - coming to China on a Canadian government intership to work for a state-owned Chinese carpet company, is obvious. Only passion can give you enough mojo to finally do what you love – and make a living doing it.
BuzzandtheCity : Tell us about your work..
Andrew Rowat : My portraits have appeared in the New Yorker and Vanity Fair and my travel work regularly appears in Conde Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure. My lifestyle and design work makes its way into Wallpaper*, Monocle, and Dwell. If you read (and by read I mean look at the pictures) Esquire or GQ you have also seen my work.
A number of years ago I was also identified as one of the Top 30 photographers in the world to watch (creepy I know – thinking that all of these people are peering at you from the shadows), and since then we have had a yearly heaping of 30 more – still it was gratifying to be acknowledged by your peers. [if you google my name + “rising star” or “PDN 30” you can also read some other bios]
Carol Potter, CEO of BBDO Asia
B.C : What is the most fascinating in Shanghai for a photographer?
A.R : Early morning vibrancy. Not many cities can match the hurly burly of early morning Shanghai. Whether it is parks filled with retirees doing tai-chi and ballroom dancing; or long queues of pajama-clad Shanghainese waiting for dumplings and fried pancakes in the cluttered streets of the old city. Early morning in North America means lone joggers, the occasional commuter, but not much else. The other thing that happens in Shanghai, and China generally, when you are photographing is that you tend to attract a crowd. Mind you, you could have a bike accident and the same thing would happen. The Chinese love a spectacle.
Yue-Sai Kan at her home in Shanghai on Wednesday March, 4, 2009. Yue-Sai Kan created China's first major cosmetics brand in 1992, and is a television celebrity, hosting the show 'Yue-Sai's World'.
B.C : You have left Shanghai – temporarily of course, and living in New York. Is it the only place to go after Shanghai?
AR : Hardly. I think New York is a very safe and pedestrian choice after Shanghai as world cities go. I think there are much more interesting, and dynamic choices – Bogota, Santiago, Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus, Sao Paolo, or maybe a nice small village by the ocean in Italy….. (agree on that last choice)
Zhang Yin, the founder of Nine Dragons Paper (ND Paper) at her office and on the floor of Assembly Line 11 on Tuesday, November 25, 2008. Zhang Yin topped a list of richest Chinese in 2006, with an estimated wealth of USD 3.4 billion.
“Shanghai PPl” is BuzzandtheCity introduction of people behind remarkable projects in marketing & advertising, technology & communication, luxury, art & design, and of course entertainment.
Andrew Yang & Design for BuzzandtheCity
As 100%design opens in Shanghai tomorrow, Andrew Yang talks about the fair, designers on watch in China and inspiring places in our beloved city.
BuzzandtheCity : What’s your story ?
Andrew Yang : I have been a design journalist all my life. I studied Architectural History in college and when I graduated, I moved to New York to write about architecture and design. I’ve freelanced for all the publications I have loved to read, like Wallpaper*, the New York Times, Architectural Record, W and WWD.
When I moved to Shanghai in January 2007, I slowly made the rounds, meeting all the important and notable designers in Shanghai. One thing led to another and 100% Design came calling–they wanted to launch in Shanghai, after they had established their shows in London (1995) and Tokyo (2005). So in my third year now, my role on the show is consultant. I have a lot of freedom to be both hands-on and hands-off when I see fit. I consult on just about every aspect of the show, from the show’s business strategy to the designers we invite, to all the major media partners.
More important, I am ultimately responsible for making sure 100% Design Shanghai, which is a commercial trade showcasing modern contemporary design products, is healthy both from a critical point of view, as well as a business point of view.
BC : What to expect at this fair?
AY : This year, we have invited, as our keynote speakers, the British designers Ed Barber and Jay Osgerby. Trained as architects, they have been taking the design world by storm in the past decade, and represent for me the classic industrial designer–modern, inventive, creating products that are streamlined, smart, original and–in some way–get you to think about the future, not about the past.
So, that being said, there are a lot great things to expect at the show. For one, our creative directors, Tobias Wong and Aric Chen, have created a dazzling exhibition with our sponsor Crystallized–Swarovski Elements with a pop-up shop of original products by Chinese-based designers. They have also launched a competition to nurture young Chinese talent, which we have named “DESIGNED IN CHINA: The Rado Young Design Prize,” after our gracious benefactor, the Swiss watchmaker Rado. Through this competition, a young designer will actually get a chance to get his or her product made, manufactured and sold, courtesy of Design Republic, another sponsor of this prize.
Another program to expect is STEP 1, where 6 Chinese architects have designed furniture, made by a Chinese furniture manufacturer, Airises, which is really making an effort to get designers to work with their industrial facility in Jinan.
BC : What is the hot item to buy ? (The Shopaholic in me is speaking..)
AY : Generally, you cannot buy things at the show. If you are a designer or a restaurant owner, for example, you can place orders for things at the show. Things on the exhibition floor at the show are for viewing. Think of it this way, if you want to buy something, someone will have to go to the warehouse to get you what you want.
However, at the 100% Crystallized pop-up show, some one-of-a-kind items have been commissioned that people will be able to buy as a way of owning a piece of this year’s show. The pieces range from 180RMB to 1,500 RMB. I personally have my eye on the “Precious” shoebrush (380RMB) by Shanghai-based designers WOKmedia and the Jin Shi Wei Kai vase (450 RMB) by Beijing designer Liu Feng.
Jin Shi Wei Kai Vase by Liu Feng - limited to 88 pieces
BC : From your perspective, which hot designer in China should we follow now? Who is your favorite?
AY : This is a hard question. I can’t play favorites, obviously because I need to work with all of them! I will tell you, though that my favorite designed spaces in China are New Heights at 3 on the Bund, Issimo and the JIA hotel in Shanghai, and SML, a new restaurant by my friend Alan Lo in Hong Kong. Also, when it opens, I think CCTV in Beijing is going to be the first masterpiece of 21st Century architecture.
Look at the designers who did those projects, and that’s who you should be following.
BC : Last, a few cool places in Shanghai for design lovers and designers ?
AY : The Bund, any longtang (alleys), any tree-lined street in the French Concession : seriously, this is timeless landscape design, public planning bureau please take note! And also my apartment, because I have a well designed bed, and that’s what’s most important these days: sleep.
100%design China, 15-17th oct @ Shanghai Exhibition Center
New section “Shanghai PPl ” is BuzzandtheCity introduction of people behind remarkable projects in marketing & advertising, technology & communication, luxury, art & design, and of course entertainment.
Wiley Kestner for BuzzandtheCity
BuzzandtheCity What’s on the Menu ?
Wiley Kestner China Menu is the first iPhone application independently published by my company, Prairiedogg International Limited. I was the main developer and content editor for the app. It represents about two years of independent research and exploration of restaurants all over China. I also enlisted the help of many friends from all over the world to help me beta test, copy edit, and market the app.
BC What’s the story behind the idea?
WK Before I came to Beijing in 2002, I had no idea how good real Chinese food was, or how poorly it is done in the United States, where I’m from originally. The freshness of ingredients, thrillingly unfamiliar new tastes like Sichuan peppercorn, and seemingly inexhaustible regional variety were just a few of the things that made me fall in love in with Chinese cuisine.
At the same time, I realized that it was incredibly difficult for foreigners to order well at Chinese restaurants. Chinese menus are impenetrable, even if they are translated into English. For instance, “Chicken Treasures” sounds innocuous enough, but “treasure” is often a euphemism on Chinese menus for “internal organs”.
Most foreigners only need to accidentally eat chicken heart or pig brain once before they go running back to one of three or four commonly ordered “foreigner” dishes, or simply retreat to western style cafés and restaurants.
The result is that a lot of foreigners miss out on some of the most amazing (and incidentally, inexpensive) cuisine in the world.
So in 2007 I decided to make a website, chinabites.com, that helped introduce the amazing cuisine of China to a foreign audience. I placed special emphasis on photographing and cataloging my favorite dishes at my favorite restaurants. Chinabites.com helps people discover great restaurants in China, but I realized it was less helpful to them when they were actually inside the restaurant, where it’s not really convenient lug your laptop.
In 2008 the iPhone came along and I knew immediately that it was the perfect platform for creating an interactive menu and ordering buddy that any foreigner could carry in their pocket. Thus China Menu was born. China Menu takes all of its 220+ dishes directly from the chinabites.com database and then adds a large list of translated conversations to help foreigners negotiate all aspects of dining in Chinese restaurants without having to learn any Chinese.
BC Ambitious..How did you implement the project?
WK The most difficult part of implementing the project was the data collection. China Menu represents over two years of photography and note-taking from all over China and over seven years of accumulated experience about the most common problems foreigners face when eating out in China.
Actually putting the app together was relatively straightforward. It took about six weeks to assemble and then another six weeks of beta testing with people in China and all over the world to polish. It’s hard to quantify, but I would say China Menu became two to three times more useful as a direct result of the great suggestions the small beta test group made.
BC What’s your expectations for your baby ?
WK The larger goal of all of my projects is to help foreigners understand China. China has so much in common with the outside world and that fact is too often obscured by overly reductive rhetoric. China Menu can’t possibly be an exhaustive guide to every dish in every restaurant in China, there’s just too much great food out there. But China Menu will be a success if it can help a a single foreigner have an amazing meal and then gets him or her excited about exploring further. I’ve tried to design it with the “explorer” in mind – so in addition to all of the recommended dishes, there’s also a large section for just asking your waiter what he might recommend.
Beyond that, I really hope to hear back from people who use China Menu so I can continue to make it an even better tool.
That being said, China Menu is designed to help foreigners when they’re already in a restaurant. I would like to make a mobile client for chinabites.com that helps foreigners find a great restaurant in the first place. In particular I would like design it so as to encourage people to share restaurants and food that they’ve discovered with their friends.
I look forward first and foremost to building on and improving China Menu itself based on the feedback from users all over China.
BC One serious question : what’s your favorite Chinese dish ?
WK Fried Bananas, or, 炸香蕉 (zhá xiāngjiāo). It’s a Dai ethnic dish that can be found at many Yunnan or Dai restaurants in China (note:picture featuring on the press release)
PS : Wiley is not Shanghainese, I’m just too lazy to open a category “Kunming PPl“