a hutong alley in Beijing. It’s no Harlem.

Radio 4’s Hip-Hop China-style gives you some insight into what happens when Chinese rappers get stuck into the form. Guns? Gangs? Beefs? no, raps about food, amongst other things. And why not? They aren’t racially marginalised kids growing up in ghettos, or inheritors of NWA,  they are middle-class Chinese only-children experimenting. Western marketeers could learn a valuable lesson here though: just because Chinese youth may share some fashions with their Western counterparts their values, motivations and aesthetics can be radically different. And that means Chinese hip-hoppers aren’t into aping gangsters, they are following Tawainese and Hong Kong pop-rap idols or writing conscious hip-hop about regional food differences.

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 still from the documentary Up the Yangtse, by Yung Chang

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is on in London at the moment and coming to NYC soon. There’s a great selection of films, animation and documentaries from around the world including Yung Chang’s Up the Yangtse, a documentary about a tourist cruise on the Yangtse River. The cruise becomes a metaphor for modern China, its economic struggle and successes, social pressures and Westernisation, all played out in the pleasure boat’s microcosm.

Trailer here, Film festival info here.

a still from the Japanese film, Sakuran

Sakuran is a anti-Memoirs of a Geisha, a riposte to the Hollywood view of Japan and Japanese women. Based on the Sakuran manga by Anno Moyoko, the plot centres around a young girl sold as a child to an upmarket brothel set in Edo period Japan and her determination to break out and be free. If sounds heavy going it isn’t, the heroine is fierce, wise-cracking and unrelentingly defiant - basically the opposite of the stereotypical Japanese woman. The lead actress is gravelly-voiced model/actress/punk rocker and the director, Mika Ninagawa set out to intentionally challenge the Geisha idea of femininity;

“Of course, women have become stronger in some ways. But our mother’s generation had to fight. Now girls don’t have to. Perhaps they don’t notice that they are trapped. I wanted the movie to push them forward, to say: “Stand on your own feet and walk.” I hope Kiyoha will be a hero for girls.”

The film’s been an unexpected hit with young Japanese women so it does seem that Mika understands her audience. And what does this mean for brands? Perhaps that they should start connecting less to the Geisha mindset and more to their audience’s inner Kiyohas.

You can watch the Japanese language trailer here.

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.

Three neologisms concerning women in today’s Japan:
Yubisakibijin (literally ‘fingertip beauty’) - a woman who spends a large portion of her salary on nail care.
Sokosokozuma a woman who settles for a so-so marriage just for the sake of being married.
Henkyoryugaku - Describes young women who in their twenties and thirties rebel, drop out and go travelling abroad pursuing often eccentric activities.
I’m a big fan of these language-specific terms. They can reflect trends, attitudes and cultural nuances that can be both universal and very specific, and they have a great way of pointing out things we may have overlooked.

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.

The Children from ‘Born in Brothels’

Born into Brothels, the Oscar winning documentary by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski, documents the lives of the children of prostitute families in Calcutta. Growing up in the city’s infamous Red Light district is simultaneously grim and mundane. For the girls in particular it’s only a short time before they join their mothers, sisters and aunts ‘in line’, becoming prostitutes themselves.

The film actually started as a photography project by Zana Briski documenting the lives of the women in the district. She got to know the children of the sex workers and began teaching them photography, encouraging them to document their own lives. The children take the pictures you would expect, photos of friends, family, neighbours and the streets around them but with an immediacy that is startling and beautiful (you can see and buy the photos here).

The children are all keen to go to school to better themselves and escape the life that otherwise awaits them but their family background means local schools won’t take them. In the end, foreign-run religious schools enrol them but the some of the families sabotage the children’s chances, taking them back out of school. The sale of the children’s photos help pay for their education, including some now studying at university overseas.

This is a great film but especially good for anyone interested in Asia - it’s a reminder just how people on the fringes can be dismissed and underestimated but also how it’s not just society that holds them back, it can also be their own peers and families.

the children today

A migrant workers’ suitcase, carried on a pole across the shoulders. The other end was attached to a bedding roll and a laundry bag filled with clothes. Nanjing, China.

Rural-Urban migration is reshaping Asia. By 2050 China will, for the first time in its history, be a predominantly urban society. India is heading in a similar direction. This migration is an economic one, with millions of rural workers moving to the town to find better-paid work and new opportunities.

These migrant workers are generally overlooked by brands, seen as transitory, poorly paid and outside of the mainstream economy. It’s a big oversight as migrants send back money and information about brands to families back at home. They buy big-ticket goods to bring home at festival times and back in their own communities they are the most affluent and influential members. Building a relationship with these migrants means and a direct line to the hard to reach volume rural markets and a chance to connect to the future working class of the main cities.

To give you an idea of what migrants face have a look at this film report from India. Look out for the migrant who has settled in Mumbai, working as a waiter, and note the difference between him and the young boys he is advising. His worldly advice to the boys that “In Bombay you keep your dreams, but they get a little smaller” is honest, poignant, optimistic and says so much about the migrant predicament. And it’s just the sort of moment we try to capture in our work.

For the International Herald Tribune film click here.