June 2013
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Hello, my name is Mark, I'm from the Philippines. I've always wondered what kind of work you have (if you don't mind my asking). I am a big fan of your photos and the way you capture moments. Passion and commitment can be easily felt/seen through your photographs. The kind of work you have is something I would really like to be a part of. People and our cultural diversity (or our diversity, in general) have always fascinated me ever since I was young. Seeing your photos is very inspirational. :)
Hi Mark- thanks for getting in touch and for such a kind note! I work as a planner for Edelman in Shanghai. A lot of my photos here are just from personal travel and life in Shanghai but I’ll be sharing more from a bigger research/film project that I’ll be doing this year as part of my work.
Home Recording
Mount Kimbie
My work music tonight
May 2013
“We started as a ship of fools. And that, I firmly believe, is why we have succeeded… We were both incredibly stupid. That was the key. See, when you don’t know, you try desperately to find out. But the minute you think you know, the minute you go – oh, yeah, we’ve been here before, no sense reinventing the wheel – you stop learning, stop questioning, and start believing in your own wisdom, you’re dead. You’re not stupid anymore, you are fucking dead.”
—Read, re-read, read again.
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Sometimes one needs an opportunity to truly encounter a certain word. We encounter all kinds of words in the course of our lives, and some we understand at first glance and some we may rub shoulders with but never fully understand.
‘The people’ belongs in that second category. It’s one of the first phrases I learned to read and write, and it has clung to me in my travels through life, constantly appearing before my eyes and surrounding my ears.
” —Yu Hua, China in Ten Words
“So I limit myself to ten words. But this tiny lexicon gives me ten pairs of eyes with which to scan the contemporary Chinese scene from different vantage points. My aim is to stay brief and concise, beginning this narrative journey from daily life we know so well. Daily life may seem trivial and routine, but in fact it contains a multitude of incidents, at once rich, expansive, and touching, Politics, history, society and culture, one’s memories and emotions, desires and secrets- all reverberate there. Daily life is a veritable forest and, as the Chinese saying goes, ‘Where woods grow deep, you’ll find every kind of bird.’”
—Tonight, I’m at the start of Yu Hua’s China in Ten Words
Looking for Filmmakers and Candidates in Shanghai, Mumbai and Delhi
At the moment, our team is looking to fill several roles for various projects. Below is a quick overview. I’d appreciate any recommendations!
First, we’re looking for filmmakers in Mumbai and Delhi for an upcoming project. Any suggestions for great people to connect with?
I’m also looking for a production assistant in Shanghai. Good job for recent grads/students.
Finally, we’re interviewing for several roles in our Edelman Shanghai digital team right now.
If you or anyone you know is interested in any of the above, you can email me at amanda.mooney[at]edelman.com
Thanks, friends:)
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“My parents take good care of her in every way. They love my daughter very much. As for my wife, she takes her to piano lessons and is responsible for her study. I am always on business trips, so I don’t have much time with her. I will fulfill her wishes if they are reasonable the best I can. I will spend more time with her on the weekends. If I have time, I will arrange some travel for our family. I want to see her more. My daughter is close with her grandparents the most, and then with her mom. I’m the least.”
—Lu Yu, 36
Still posting about fresh and interesting things. One of the few Tumblr's that remain from back when I started using this website. Are you travelling through Asia at the moment?
Thanks for getting in touch and for such a nice note:) I’m in Shanghai for the next few weeks and then am setting out on a nearly year-long trip for a project
“When I was little, kids got excited about Spring Festival. We would long for it so that we could eat something good. We were happy that our parents gave us some pocket money. Nowadays, although we get to eat much more food than the past, we can’t find that kind of satisfaction any more.”
— “Maggie”, 42, Beijing
“It was a discovery born of (digital) necessity. Evidently delighted by the realization that they could directly petition the President of the United States from the comfort of an Internet cafe in Chengdu, Chinese netizens have followed suit with several more petitions on the same site. At last count, four of the most recent six White House petitions were apparently penned by Chinese Web users… Most importantly, moments such as these hint, however obliquely, at the latent promise of a truly connected Internet, rather than the siloed version that effectively exists today.”
—From Far Away, Chinese Web Users ‘Occupy’ the White House
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When I was a kid, my parents took us camping. At some point, they needed a break. (I think they wanted to hump in the camper.) Dad was clever. He asked who could run up a hill, fastest. Without even finishing his sentence, we were off—we never asked why.
The smart kids in The Valley have us doing the same. We chase follows, likes, and views, but fail to consider what to do upon getting them. While the value of these metrics may be questionable, achieving them is seen as a win. Few are wise enough to ask whether these numbers matter.
Having an audience can help you get paid and that’s good. Putting your focus solely on building a following is a fool’s game, though. This pursuit of recognition is boring, and a terribly crowded race.
While you have little control over others’ attention, you have full control of what you make. So, why not put your effort into building something beautiful? Doing so is infinitely more rewarding than bombarding friends with junk. The result may even be something you can promote—should you suffer the need to do so.
” —Something beautiful
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[T]he things people put on display inevitably generate a kind of inertia. In a world where we now have extraordinarily efficient ways of communicating and displaying, the question of who you are becomes incredibly complicated.
I think that brands are a part of this. When you surround yourself with certain kinds of objects, they become a public statement about who you are. There are hundreds of choices that are necessary to fill out your life with objects and things, and I think that requires an inner logic as well.
Maybe the modern version of introspection is the sum total of all those highly individualized choices that we make about the material content of our lives…
[O]ur material choices as consumers are no longer trivial. They are now amongst the most important choices we make. They have consequences well beyond our own selves — they have global consequences… you’re saying to the world, “These are my values. This is the kind of world I want.
” —Gladwell on brands
“We almost always used “things” as a way to identify ourselves and to identify others. Let’s start with the human body. In traditional cultures, the art of tattooing was about social coding. A certain number of tattoos meant you’ve been married. Another number of tattoos meant that you’ve had children. This many tattoos meant that you’ve killed a lion. Nowadays, we have a tremendous emphasis on dress and makeup and in our rituals of buying. I use the word “rituals” very specifically. But our rituals of consumption are no longer as satisfactory to us … because they are empty of human relationships. There was recently a wonderful study done on garage sales. When people go to a garage sale to buy something, they actually feel very satisfied about the interaction. Most of the time, it’s because the object they buy comes with a story—a very real, personal story about where the object fit into someone’s life. Whether it’s real or not, you connect with that person through the object. So when you take the object, your purchase of it is more satisfactory. Whereas right now, when you go now to a store, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on branding that tells authentic stories in order to … sell more stuff.”
—// Dori Tunstall on design
