Week 7- Creativity is...

The cycle of eat, school, friends, and sleep continued this past week as I enjoyed just casually progressing through the week and living life. I've found a nice group of friends to hang out and eat some great food as well enjoy spending time together. As more weeks pass by, I realize that living in Hong Kong is quite different from Hawaii, yet I enjoy the change of pace that I'm experiencing. This week's blog is going to be a little different as I want to highlight a particular event that happened this week. Particularly, an interesting guest lecture I had during my International Marketing class the other day.

• Backstory - Two guest lectures named Ron and Sharon showed up to our class and introduced themselves respectively as the producer and director of a short film in Hong Kong called Creativity Is.  Our professor had invited them over as a means to learn their creative marketing process for their short film as well as give feedback on their short film. Their target audience was mainly focused on young people in Hong Kong to help change their idea on what creativity is.
• Short Film - This 25 minute film is a documentary short that explores the numerous ideas of what is creativity through the minds of local Hong Kong students and six individuals - a psychologist, designer, startup entrepreneur, activist, inventor, and a yoga teacher.  They share their ideas of what creativity is in Hong Kong and how they can rediscover their creativity through a different perspective. The message of the film is that creativity isn't about coming up with your own ideas but rather believing in yourself to come up your own way on how to tackle life's daily obstacles.
• Marketing - What really caught my attention was their approach to market their short film project with what little budge they had. One particular example is that they made their film screenings very personal and small in unique venues to help interact with the audience to focus on getting feedback from them as well as get their message across. Every aspect of their marketing that they told us felt new and exciting as I have never heard of such creative marketing before. It was quite possibly one of the most interesting classes I'v ever attended.
• Take Away - After talking to Ron and Sharon, they told us that the younger generation resonated with the film while westerners or older generations thought the idea was too simple. The reasoning is that the Asian mindset of creativity is limited by society and rules according to the six students in the film. After watching this documentary, I realized that I could connect with this idea but at the same time I understood why people might criticize this simple idea of creativity. At the end of the day, this film inspired me to become "creative" and become more confident in myself to tackle my daily life.

Follow them on their website, Facebook, and Instagram to learn more about their project.