a still from our film, a Chinese student’s family photo in Dutch national costume

The West has been fascinated by China but what does China think of the West? Increased affluence and relaxed Chinese and international travel restrictions has opened up the West to millions of Chinese so how does this new exposure to occidental values affect the Chinese who study, holiday and work in the West? What impressions of the West do people return with and how does it reflect on life back at home? Is life that different? And if it is different, is better or worse? We talk to students in Delft about their experiences, watch the film here.

Parents of freshmen sleep on mats on the floor of a gymnasium, inside a university campus in Wuhan, China, from Our World Now.

Our World Now, a collection of photographs from Reuters (Thames and Hudson) is out now and it’s a good resource for planners interested in global markets - a gallery of issues, lifestyles and the human condition to draw inspiration from.

A sample of the contents can be found here.

And why are the parents sleeping in the gym? Get in touch and I’ll tell you…

a woman in Beijing, wearing a mask at a speed dating event

24 hours in pictures, from The Guardian, here. If you thought it was just another typical Easter weekend, have a look at what it meant to others around the world.

A rural Russian town, entirely inhabited by elderly women, everyone else has died or left.

Behind the emerging markets’ success stories are rural majorities yet untouched by the growing prosperity of urban areas. This urban/rural imbalance means young people leave the country to try their luck in towns and city, leaving the older and poorer members of the community struggling to survive. Two stories illustrate this, albeit with local flavours; the impact alcholism and underinvestment in Russia here (a guardian film report) and a the impact of sweeping changes and harsh climates in China here.

Taiwanese airline EVA’s Hello Kitty jet.

Western and Asian attitudes to cuteness tend to be different. Cute in the west tends to be restricted to children, informal and private environments. Asia has a much more expansive use of cuteness - perfectly ok for office workers’ desks to be knee-deep in soft toys and cute ornaments, perfectly ok for your car to be a mobile toy museum, absolutely fine for a grown woman to have a matching set of non-ironic Hello Kitty luggage. If anything, cute can be upmarket - Japanese Sanrio mechandise is sold at a premium and is virtually a designer brand in China. Most western brands overlook the power of cuteness but they are missing out - Coca-cola’s Qoo drink brand rocked the Asian market thanks to its Japanese designed character.

Qoo

EVA’s Hello Kitty jet was launched in 2005 and is still going strong, complete with its own website (here). Overlooking the appeal of cute means you miss out on taping into one of Asia’s big loves.

a Chinese plug

Guanxi is the Chinese word to describe the complex system of obligation, social duty, influence, networking and social cache that is fundamental to Chinese society. It’s hard for Westerners to understand just how subtle and complex this concept is but if you are Spanish you may have an advantage. In Spain there’s a term ‘enchufe’ or ‘enchufado’ meaning ‘plugged in’. It refers to your ability to use personal contacts for preferential treatment or weave through beaurocratic processes. I’m not suggesting that it’s the same thing but the idea that you use your personal, private network first and foremost to achieve your goals rather than official and public channels is very much part of Guanxi too.