On Creative and Dalian's Creativity Nursery

Perhaps a rant, perhaps really interesting, I'm not sure what I think about Dalian's 'creative' future.  We all create things, I create bad smells after eating baked beans, but 'creativity' in this sense perhaps means a shift in culture from a life of function and history to one of reflection and enjoyment.  Graeme said:

Of course the best coffee in Dalian is made by myself, at home, but
Echo is probably the coolest place in town to chill out and drink other
people's coffee...it's also becoming a key cultural hub for Dalian's
small creative community, holding photo & art exhibitions, live
performances, film nights etc. There are plenty other cafes which
aspire to the same, but they seem to rely more on existing friends and
a transient foreign community for their custom. Echo on the other hand
is the only one run by local Chinese in their twenties, who are part of
the Web 2.0 generation. It now has its own group on Douban.com, the
Chinese social networking site for books, films, music etc. Membership
is currently at several hundred. They've realised that to be a hub in
the physical world these days, you need to be one in the virtual world
too.

First, more on creative:  I get huge pleasure browsing Colour Lovers once a week, looking at patterns and colour combinations which are simply beautiful.  I could go to Dalian's shell museum and look at some shells which are also beautiful, perhaps it's staring at bland colours all day, I just something enjoyable about looking at patterns and colour schemes.  I also, and have always, enjoyed plants, as have many others for many millennia, so what's this sort of creative?  Echo Coffee has a small beer garden at the back, when there recently a friend pointed out two stickers on the door, they were placed roughly but not exactly half way up the door and on the inner-left.  Why put them there opposed to any other place?  It just made so much aesthetic sense to put them on the left rather than in the middle, or anywhere else - the colours and dimensions of the stickers complemented and conflicted with their surroundings no where else was as good.  Perhaps that's what I, and Graeme above, are talking about when we're using this term 'creative' - those that love the study and progress of art for a sake - understanding and completing the world around us.  Pre-amble over.

Will Dalian Ever Be A Creative Hub?

Maybe, for some niche areas, generally no, the race is already lost to Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.  Again reverting to Graeme:

i agree, it is everywhere. in big places like
Beijing its been out of the woodwork for long
enough for a proper "scene" to
form, on the way to becoming the next New
York if you believe the hype, but in smaller
second-tier cities like Dalian, and also
others i visited recently like Chengdu and
Changsha, it has needed something like the
web 2.0 social networking, along with a
decent venue locally to act as a magnet, to
coalesce the disparate creative strands into
mini-scenes strong enough to somewhat counter
the all-powerful centralising pull of
Beijing's scene.

And my response:

I believe the latter, but I don't believe
Dalian will ever be a huge cultural hub. At
a garment exporter earlier today I really did
get the feeling they were truly 'creative',
at least the manager certainly was. But how
long will the trickle take? Working with
colours and fabrics those people had the
opportunity and the time to... I don't know,
appreciate art in 2 of it's rawest forms:
colour and texture. The manager wearing a
black suit and leather shoes at the beach,
driving an Audi (the shady business man's
brand of choice), his wife thinking of buying
a Gucci handbag, his child forced to recite
homework until 10pm, the university graduate
aspiring to that businessman's 'lifestyle'.
And the 900 million peasants. When will it
'trickle down' to them? Perhaps should be
phrased as when will they have the economic
security/family approval/exposure to 'think
different', to borrow a phrase from Apple.

You remind me of an Spacial Economics book I
read in university. The book was heavy on
linear and less linear algebra, trying to
prove abstract concepts in real life (why
prove it then?). The book was a waste of
time since the principal could be summed up
as: people go where there is already
something they are good at. For example,
Dalian has a shipyard because people that can
build ships are here and people come to work
in the shipyard because they can get a job
building ships. Like you mention Beijing and
media, or my background: London and finance
(well... that's messy).

But things are changing:

I can only agree with your assessment of RA
Club - a cheap empty store room (-10 degrees
when I first went on a bighting winter's
evening), accessed via a hotel's
maintenance/fire exit and only open on band
nights, has transformed into 2 successful
businesses serving the same niche just 2
years later . 

The change is starting.  I cannot say what started it but can speculate:  prosperity brings with it social security and the ability to truely 'think out of the box' (a term far over-abused by second class management consultants).

Would anyone else like to add to the conversation?