Documentary: Electronic Produccts and Electronic Waste

The documentary covers the interviews which were done with 2nd hand electronic shop and electronic consumers.

As many of us own at least 1 electronic item, the documentary enable us, as a consumer, to realise more about the electronic stuff that we are using.

The documentary covers the extent to which people are concerned with environmental issues and labour working condition in the electronic waste recycling industry. It looks at the general information about 2nd hand electronic items. It researched on how people deal with their unwanted electronic products. It asked people for suggestions on who do they think is responsible for e-waste and how e-waste management should be improved. Finally, the documentary reviewed the factor that influences people’s decision before they buy electronic products.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTcyODIxNDAw.html

Documentary_’Creative Industries:Leading Actor or Supporting Actor’

This documentary follows the topic on the Creative Industries in relation to urban reconstruction and land development. In the process of Ningbo’s city development and urban renewal in the recent years, one would witness that the Creative Industries plays an active and significant role and potentially processes economic, political or  social power.

The argument embedded in the documentary is that the Creative Industries, for one hand, is a set of economic form, able to generate economic growth and contribute to labor employment; on the other hand, it is also a tool, used to cover the underneath strategies for coalition between local government, real estate developer and commercial industries.

In order to visually present the argument and demonstrate it in a convinced and easily understood way, the project of Book City is selected as an example for assessment.

Here is the documentary, enjoy~~

Documentary: Creative Clusters in Ningbo

Creative industries are flourishing in China. Ningbo has also realized the significance of creative industries in the whole economy. One of the most visible measures has been taken is to construct creative clusters, which, to some extent, improve the creative industries in Ningbo.

However, we can not neglect the problems of these shining creative clusters. First, some of the creative clusters are not purely “creative”. Second, the propaganda of the creative clusters is not enough. Third, most creative clusters in Ningbo are similar without obvious distinctions to attract different creative companies.

To sum up, constructing creative can help develop creative industries, but we should notice some problems emerging in the progress of development.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTcyNzM0MzE2.html

Documentary: Clean Industries, Toxic Clusters

This documentary is inspired by the lecture on ‘waste industries:Secondary Resources and the Geopolitics of Waste Distribution’ which reveals the unknown relationship between the Creative Industries with an image of being ‘clean’ and how it ‘contribute’ to a toxic industry of E-Waste.  Further field works on Creative industries and Real Estate Industries made a new observation  that new soil pollution due to the clusters built on decommissioned factories sites without proper cleaning once again make the ‘clean industries’ into a toxic ones. 

The documentary serves as a recorder that  traces the research from realizing the toxic side of a ‘clean’ industry to  field trips in finding the local discourses(Soil Cleaning due to the change of land ownership is normally ignored by local government, developers and even the consumers).  The aim of the research is not to find out answer on  whether the so-call clean industries is clean or not,  is with an effort to find out the relationships with which local practices can be tested by the academic inputs(why should soil cleaning be treated seriously, for whom? and who can contribute to a better solution?..etc.).

By identifying the above questions , a further attempt will be made to reveal and solve the problems  in a following essay with the same title.

Clean Industries, Toxic Clusters

Documentary Summary: Changes of Our Understanding of Creative Industry

My document is not about the specific contents of creative industry but about the change of our comprehension of it. Actually, by discussing in the classes and researching in the field, our understanding of creative industry has undergone conversations from narrow ones to comprehensive ones.

At the beginning of the course, we totally cannot find the relationship between creative industry and other areas, like real-estate, waste industry and maritime industry. Our understanding of creative industry was limited to the field of design. In our established thinking, creation always related to the production design, and the creative industry was merely lots of creative companies gathered in industrial parks or lofts. By directing with these thought, we chose creative industry parks in Shanghai and Loft 8 in Ningbo as our first places for researching. We wanted to study the present conditions and future development trends by comparing the differences of creative industry in these two cities.

The research in Shanghai offered us other angles of vision about creative industry. We began to know that both the words of ‘creative’ and ‘industry’ should be paid more attentions when we researched in Ningbo. So, we took an interview with a scholar in the office of creative industry in Technology University in Ningbo. By talking with the experts, on one hand, we got information of the condition of creative industry in Ningbo. On the other hand, we found that Chinese scholars may notice the relationship between creative industry and culture, but ignore the position of creative industry in the whole urban network.

After getting knowledge from the classes and seminars, we began to think about the position of creative industry in urban network, and do field work in relevant industries, such as waste industry and maritime industry, which are the important parts of urban network. Latter we have done an interview with the president of creative industry association of Ningbo. He introduced the whole development modes of creative industry in Ningbo. And he also mentioned other problems closely related to the development of creative industry, such as the increase of house estate prices and the construction of supporting facilities of creative industry, although he did not explain deeply. With his comprehensive introduce and our field works in different areas related to the creative industry, our understanding of creative industry is no longer as limited as before.

In conclusion, Ningbo has owned its development modes of creative industry. Under the government’s plan, creative industry areas and their supporting facilities are also established. However, in this stage, because of a lack of a whole industry chain, the positioning of creative industry in Ningbo is considered as to serve the foreign trade and manufacturing industry, and to be the venturing bases of creative industry itself. Like other cities in China, the development of creative industry leads some problems. For example, the prices of house located near the creative industry parks increases and more waste brought from creative industry need to be disposed scientifically.

There are many more problems related to the creative industry in Ningbo. So, more studies should be done by researchers who are interested in this topic in the future.

Click Here

My Documentary Video (Modified)

I interviewed to Mr. Zhu who is the secretary-general of Ningbo Renewable Resources Industry Association. So I modified my original video and add this interview to it.

According to Mr. Zhu, at present, there are two problems in the recycling industry: firstly, the prices of waste have declined rapidly due to the financial crisis.  Secondly, according to the tax policy, from 1st January, 2009, the recycling companies should pay value added tax (17%). However, they were tax-free before. Now, the recycling companies can not  suffer this hard situation and some of them have gone bankrupt.

In order to develop circular economy, governmental policies should give the recycling industries more supports. Now, you can open this video and watch more details.

Open this video

Recycling Factory,Migrant Worker and Bonus Track about Shanghai CI

This video is focus on the recycling factory and migrant worker in Cixi city (A small city Belong to the big Ningbo).

According to Cixi government report, the urban resident per capita disposable income and rural resident per capita net income are RMB 24,535 Yuan and 11,126 Yuan with an annually averaged increment of 13.5% and 16.3%, respectively. The gross value of industrial products is RMB 183,280 million Yuan and the foreign trade export 5,077 million US Dollars.

On the other hand, at present there are more than 2,000 OEM manufacturers of household appliance and ten thousand factories of parts and accessories of household appliance in Cixi City.

Therefore I choose Cixi City as my Recycling research project.

I have gone to the Cixi City Sanitation Management and some recycling companies. I also have interviewed some workers and migrants. They have told me that how the financial crisis affected them and the transportation process of the recycling .

In the bonus track, I interviewed the local residenter in Shanghai Tianzi Fang Creative Park , and also the artist.In addition gatekeeper from Culture &Media in Shanghai also included. I use this video to memorialize our happy life in the Urban Media Networks module.We really enjoy our field work and look forward to another chance.

Click here Recycling in Cixi City

Notice of the video website

Documentary summary: creative clusters and urban spatial structure in Ningbo

Compare to Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen where a relatively mature development of creative industry has, Ningbo is experiencing the early stage. Ningbo mainly has four forms of creative clusters.

1. New established industrial park such as Chuangxin 128 of Yinzhou district and Chuang E Hui Gu (Creative Technology Park) of Zhenhai district;

2. Rebuild Creative Park like loft 8 and Hefeng creative square which based on disused old Hefeng cotton mill;

3. Commercial creative park with government support, for instance the Industrial Design Creative Street;

4. Independent enterprise which leads new brand in its industry in Ningbo, like Ningbo Tianzhiying Film, Video and Animation Corporation.

On the one hand, the rise of creative clusters contributes to tinker up the distribution of urban functional districts. Ningbo used to focus on export trade and commercial manufacture. Creative industry is related to citied industry and has characteristics of knowledge-intensive.

Moreover, it has positive effects in contributing to urban functions according to the increasing of creative clusters.

1. Urban economic functional districts will generate from the increasing of creative clusters. Such as the emergence of starred hotels and shopping mall which appropriate for the demands of urban economic operation.

2. Distinctive Industry assemble brings upgrade of enterprise and industrial scale. It is systematic but not dispersive. Once the clusters come into being it will become the symbol of local creative industry and radiate to a national scale. However, large-scale industrial clusters has not generated yet but being attempted.

3. The core power of developing industry is commercial promotion. Even Hollywood has to depend on its commercial operation to achieve global attention. Urban distinctive Industry is an important system of industrial commercialization.

Although in nowadays it has limited relationship with deploying urban construction, Ningbo creative industry aims at becoming a brand new creative incubator for doing own business.

See the video please click here

Nostalgic creativity –Documentary summery

Ci Cheng is Ancient town in the North of Ningbo with 2000 years history. It is the oldest county and best preserved in the south of China. I t maintains old chessboard pattern the same as the capital in Tang Dynasty. With the abundant of age-old history and rich cultural heritage, Ningbo government posits Ci Cheng as the key site for developing tourism and cultural industry.
A combination of heritage and the concept DIY creates the only one DIY leisure land in China-CC CITY DIY Studio. Do it by your self, this classical art craft provides consumers with products of experience and achievement. The combination of culture and creativity produce considerable economy value. Local people get more news jobs. And this also attracts many traditions manufactories joining this project and seeking for new business opportunity to upgrade brand image.
However, local government had spent 8 billions on this project, but did not gain the expect popularity. And they might fall into the difficult between developing tourism and preserving heritage.

click here  nostalgic trip

Monologue of a House

The last decade has seen a big boom of real estate industry in China. The residential property price, take Ningbo for example, has increased about five times in the last ten years. On the one hand, real estate industry plays an important role in China’s economic development and accounts for a large part of the government revenue. On the other hand, the private residence price is far beyond the economic capacity of ordinary people. It usually cost a people’s life savings to purchase a house of their own.

Despite how expensive it is, owning a house is still considered as a “must” in the concept of majority Chinese people. It is difficult for a man without a house to find a satisfying wife. House is considered as an essential element of marriage in nowadays China, thus the emergence of “Fang Nu” (slave of house), which means one bought a house with a mortgage for 20 to 30 years and almost the rest of his life are working for paying the debt. Furthermore, we are living in a world flooded with house advertising made by real estate developers, which created an illusion that you will live a happy and honourable life as long as you buy a house.

My video tells a story in the eye of a “house” with an ironic tone. Most of the pictures were taken at the 7th China International Housing & Furnishing Exposition (CHFE), and others are from the billboards, buildings and construction sites in Ningbo.