Reaching for mega stars

"Having your idea work is addictive - it's the most addictive thing you can ever experience." So says 31-year-old creative media talent Aric Queen.

Like a growing global group of his kind, Queen has come to Shanghai to get his creative fix.

These aesthetically driven expats from all over the world, most in their early 30s, gather in cultural clusters. Now, Shanghai has become one of the world's top 15 "New Megas" - a buzz phrase that describes a great urban center driving the global economy. As a New Mega, Shanghai is becoming one of the top clusters of the creative class, according to expert Richard Florida, who also coined the phrase.

"Shanghai is certainly a magnet for the creative class. It tops all of our charts for high-technology, talent and tolerance," says the bestselling author of Rise of the Creative Class when talking about the city's super-creative core of professionals from film, music, arts and media.

Some of these foreigners come to ignite creativity by being around fellow creatives; others have found a niche for themselves.

Aric Queen is one of them.

Queen's business card classifies him as program director of Soulfire Radio. But he would not have deserved the label had it not been for his involvement in podcasts and radio, short films, an upcoming photo exhibition and his cooperation with the creative collective The Studio. He is also a music critic and, until recently, host of GigShanghai, a guide in the form of a podcast to the city's live music scene.

With his casual black T-shirt and tousled hair, music fanatic Queen is not what you would expect from someone who is management material. But he discovered one simple fact early into his career: It's all about personality.

Incidentally, he ended up in China four years ago with a plan to travel and work as an English instructor. But when the podcasting craze began, he became part of ChinesePod, the worldwide success and one of the most downloaded podcasts ever, where he co-hosted the popular Saturday Show with Jenny Zhu.

At its height, the show boasted half a million listeners. As a side effect of the success, Queen tackled odd situations like being stopped in US airports by die-hard fans, or not being able to relax with his friends in bars without onlookers expecting him to be entertaining in real life like his on-air persona.

Now, he has left Chinesepod for a career in radio management. But he emphasized the importance of new media and technologies as an "opening up of opportunities" for creatives.

To the question of why he is in Shanghai right now and not somewhere else, Queen compared Shanghai to the Wild West:

"If you have an idea, this is the place to do it. There is no other place like this in the world. It is as if something is at stake here. China offers a totally different way of doing business."

Shanghai is a platform for trying out ideas, says Queen, who found it to be a rush to be surrounded by artistic people.

As an example of how creative people foster innovation together, Queen pointed to how a dinner party with people from film, media, design and music often led to inspiring discussions, and sometimes future cooperation.

"The most important thing is to just do things, whether they are successful or not."

Sitting in the hip, restored old building in Shanghai's Red Town sculpture park, he seemed aware that his motto aped a Nike commercial. But you can hardly blame someone who tackles multiple projects at the same time for being optimistic about the possibilities for creatives who dare to "just do it".

The sense of possibilities that the emerging global creative class of foreigners in Shanghai has is not purely for the good of their individual careers. In his new book The Flight of the Creative Class, The New Global Competition for Talent, Richard Florida proposes that the wealth of a region depends on its ability to attract the creative class.

Concentrations of creative and talented people are particularly important for innovation, says Florida.

"Creative people cluster together, not simply because they like to be around one another or they prefer cosmopolitan centers with lots of amenities, though both of these things count, and Shanghai has them. They and their companies also cluster because of the powerful productivity advantages, economics of scale and knowledge spillovers density brings."

Someone who takes part in this creative knowledge spillover is Archie Hamilton of Spli-T Works, an expert on and promoter of the music scene. The 31-year old Brit moved to Shanghai in January 2006 to change the alternative music scene of China's big cities. And he is well on his way into doing so.

Hamilton's motivation was partly curiosity about China, and partly because he found the music scene in Europe to be heavily saturated.

With the goal of finding a niche in China, Hamilton felt he could make a difference here.

With a combination of what Hamilton called good luck, a detailed plan, and meeting the right people, he has made it. When asked what makes him stay, he replied:

"I have a feeling my stars have aligned here."

Working in the music industry on and off for 12 years, Hamilton has gone through the ups and downs of arranging a festival visited by 70,000 people to being bankrupt.

"It has been a roller-coaster ride," Hamilton says, stressing his incentive to share his passion for music with people. According to him, working with entertainment has to be a passion, because there is no solid business model for it.

"This is an incredible place to be - with the right attitude. Here, there is a community of people, mostly foreigners, willing to help. In many ways, it is otherwise such a hostile place to do business as an outsider. Yet there is still, or maybe because of this, a strong sense of camaraderie and cooperation."

Like Queen, Hamilton pointed to a great satisfaction spending time with creative individuals he never would have met elsewhere.

Not unlike Hamilton, 35-year-old filmmaker Juliette McCawley, who is involved in pushing the film scene, called Shanghai a good place to create a niche in the global creative class.

"The world is fascinated with China now, and I feel I have the opportunity to create work with a unique perspective - that of a Trinidadian female indie filmmaker living in Shanghai."

According to McCawley, the opportunities for her in Shanghai, as opposed to any other major city, are boundless. In addition, she found that the dynamism of this place kept her constantly motivated and inspired.

To the question of whether Shanghai is a particularly interesting or productive place for creative people to be at the moment, McCawley replied:

"It is a very remarkable place that does inspire a lot of creativity. There is so much happening around on a daily basis. I walk out my front door and there are a million stories all around.

"I am also fortunate to know other filmmakers and artistic people here, who are all crazy dreamers like myself."

As one of these crazy dreamers, Aric Queen, says: "I visited the United States a couple of weeks ago, and for the first time, I was actually bored with New York. You know that you live in a happening city when you find Brooklyn boring," Queen laughs. "Right now, Shanghai is the place to be for creative people. Neither London nor Brooklyn can match it."

(China Daily 07/26/2007 page18)