Today we’ve experienced in Holland what the Chinese culture is about. We start our tour at Katendrecht/ Deliplein where Fenmei Hu (visual artist) gave us a introduction about the history of the Chinese people in Holland. After that we went to the Belvédère house, a storytelling house where stories come to life. We saw some items that are from the Chinese culture that lived in Katendrecht like the famous Family Zee. We could took a short look at the exhibition upstairs where Linda (one of the initiators) gave us a short story how ‘the storystelling house’ started. More about this you find at: http://www.belvedererotterdam.nl/

Next, we visit ‘Santos’, to know more about the European China Centre Rotterdam (ECCR) Dada introduced the student about the plans of the building. We could take a close look at the models of the building. Where Dada explains us more about  the construction and what’s in the building ( Like a real Chinese garden).

So, now we’ve seen the Old Chinatown of Rotterdam we took the metro to the ‘West-kruiskade’ where Chinatown is now.
We walked the street, visit a Chinese toko (supermarket) and smell some nice flavors. We went to ‘Kookstudio het Zesde Geluk’ where the founder gave us a short presentation about Chinese Fooddesign and cooking. You can also have a tea taste session and some chinese cook workshop. I definitely will do that. http://tea2choc.com/

After we smell and saw some delicious things, it was time to eat real Chinese food. Time for Dimsum! We eat a lot and we talk with the guide and another Chinese man who started a network for Chinese people who will work here. They told us a lot about the Chinese culture vs. the culture here.

Our stomach was filled so we went back to our Minor Room for the workshop Food Design. Dada was introducing first some projects they”ve made for companies and then it was our turn. Our short briefing: Introduce the Bao Zi (famous Chinese snack sort of Bapao) here in Holland.

It was fun to do, but a had like a little ‘after dinner dip’ so my brains worked slower. But my team and I made a new concept for the Bao Zi where you can put your own Bao Zi together. We gave a little presentation at the end of the day.

So, how do I look back on this day?
It was a nice tour trough Rotterdam with Dada and Fenmei Hu. Now, I’ve got a better picture of what the background of the Chinese culture is about. First we gather information about the culture and how they live here, we taste real chinese food and all that came back into the workshop. I was total loss that night, but with a lot of new insights! I can’t wait to see china in real life!

Vanessa de Groot

She know the trends in the global market, what worked and doesn’t and create therefore many valuable concepts.

Today we’ve got a lecture of a very ambitious woman her name is Vanessa de Groot. Vanessa studied ‘Advertising’ at the Willem the Kooning institute. After her graduation, she didn’t wanted to work in the advertising industry. I think a strong point is that she took knowledge from different disciplines like design, research methodology but also Photography, what makes her work like a teacher on different educations. After her work as teacher she was education manager of CMD in the times that is was part of the WDKA. When CMD moved to the university of applied sciences, Vanessa was in for a new adventure. She worked for W! games and Deloitte in the Netherlands but it didn’t fulfill her life. In 2009 she makes a radical change, she gave up her job,house and social life because she wanted to work in China. And that took her on a journey of learning how other cultures work and live. It gave her ‘eye openers’ how the people work there and turn her in an other kind of person. In her lecture she explain some points that told us more about how she worked there and gave us some insight how she tackle things and get things done. It was one of the most inspiring lecture’s i’ve heart for so far. I summarized the things that I will keep in mind.

What is her point of view of innovation? 

– Intern: how they drive innovation in their company and process.

– Extern: how they innovate in product development.

About China

 “Asia is a network culture where they say on everything “yes””

The big capitals of China are changing they move to a more design world. We know that they have their “great fire wall” with the restrictions of the internet like Google and Facebook. But they made their own variation of these platforms. And they wanna also improve it!
Other development in culture is that borders are open so the Chinese people are free to travel.

What differences we’ve got with the Chinese

– Other design perspective (everything has to be centered)
– Government is most important
– Everything is arranged last-minute (so don’t be a control freak)
– For the relation with your partner u have to visit the fabrics ( To important points are service provision and offers convenience)

“Innovation in China is looking at other brands”
they’ve got a copy culture and want to improve the products they make.

How Venessa works

Stay Curious:
ask yourself questions like why  I doing this? Why have we chosen for this way?

Play:
try to be different in the way that you don’t  take things too serious. It’s a pity if you lose your the flair in your job. So be yourself!

Suspend Judgement:
first learn to know someone before you judge.

Question assumptions:
why is there an assumption, look beyond that.

Embrace your fear:
try to move yourself to the next level don’t be scared.

Daydream:
follow your dream.

Draw and scribble:
don’t dive immediately behind your laptop. First give your imagination the change and make some sketches from that. Filter your ideas and sketch again. As result your mind stays open.

Challenge yourself:
try to put yourself higher that you think you can.
“A person who never made a mistake never tried something new”

Try something new:
like food

Accept failures:
for example how they found out Coca-Cola.

Record your inspirations:
capture everything with a dummy or blog.

Cultivate your ideas:
let your idea grow (for example, give it a color)

See another angle:
out of the box thinking

Take risks:
try to do something you never did before.

Perseverance:
hold on what you are doing.

Stop reasoning and waiting to understand:
sometimes you don’t understand it, accept it and go on. Because otherwise you can’t be happy with yourself.

Reinvent yourself:
that said enough.

Workshop
“Why not use the brainstorm room?”