17 October 2011

Cooking

One thing that I have definitely enjoyed and improved in Melbourne, is cooking.

With the freedom of cooking whatever I want, I can sense that my general cooking skill has been constantly improving (chopping, frying, seasoning etc) and I am always trying to cook something that I've never done before. here are some of my recent ones:

example
Scambled Egg sandwich in bite size, ham and tomato salad in truffle balsamic vinegar and olive oil 
(yes it's not really cooking, but the egg was pretty fluffy and soft, i was pretty happy)

example
天津飯 (てんしんはん)
Its a Japanese Chinese cuisine that really has nothing to do with traditional Chinese dishes. Since I have never eaten it in my life, i can only imagine what it's like and make the sauce purely out of the blue. in the end i used smoked salmon and ham instead of crab stick/crab meat and made a hot and sour sauce instead of...watever sauce. 
 
example
Gyoza or Dumplings and some vege soup. The main focus of this photo is the fact that the dumplings were frozen when i fried them. After 8 months of eating frozen dumplings, I can claim myself as a master at frying frozen dumplings. Period.

example
Yakisoba (焼きそば) basically it's just japanese fried noodles, mixed with chicken liver, pork, cabbage and beansprout, nothing special, but tasted bloody good~~

Walking in a Smokey Forest

I didn't know why did I stop posting about half a year ago. I would've thought that moving to a new place that excites me wouldve made my blog more interesting, but life in Melbourne turned out to be quite different to what I thought it would be. and the major reason, is uni.

Everyone told me that master is such a bludge, you don't have to do anything so coming from my bachelor, i would take it the same way. It turned out that I would go to uni for 4-5 days a week, despite the fact that I am only spose to be there for 3 days. Most of my weekends are spent going to different group assignments, and eventually go home to work on it...

but either way, i think overall i am having a great time here, despite the fact that its not really what i had in mind a year ago when i decided to come.

so this should be another re-start to my blog, hopefully the next one won't be half a year apart.

12 October 2011

Multicultural Impact

Prior to this post graduate course, I expected roughly 6:4 ratio of local student and international students. However, I was surprised at the fact that it was more like 7:3 international to local. Being a Hong Kong Chinese that grew up in Australia, that moved to Melbourne purely for this master course, i find my identity slightly blurry. Seems like at times i am perceived as an Australian by international students, but on the other hand, my lack of knowledge towards Melbourne made me look like an international student. Little did I know this has actually became one of the best thing that can happen to me.

As I speak fluent English and Chinese, I was able to communicate with a most of the students in our course. As most international students came from China, I was able to meet many Chinese students from different part of China, which I was not exposed to back in Brisbane. On the other hand, I would consider myself as an Australian as well as a Hong Kong Chinese, which allows me to associate with local student from Melbourne. Alongside with other students from other countries such as Singapore, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia etc, everyday you can hear opinions from all different ethnics and background on one topic. This is a very helpful aspect of this course as the cultural barriers between each countries and races are becoming thinner and thinner (thanks to the help of the almighty internet), globalization is something that we will have to understand and work with for the rest of our career.

*Much like the book my Thomas Friedman: The World Is Flat, I think it is the same for Advertising Industry. Media and information are being spread across the world practically with no delay whatsoever, advertisers needs to be aware of how the rest of the world will see their work*

In one of my course, International Advertising, we learned about the importance of Globalization + Localization = Glocalization. Having such a diverse group of students studying together everyday, it is like glocalization conference in every class. For example, having the chance to meet students from Germany made me realize how open their country is towards nudity in TV advertising, and on the other hand meeting a student from Indonesia has also opened my world towards country where religion plays a really big part.

In a personal benefit point of view, getting to know all these people from around the world also means expanding my personal network worldwide. As mentioned in previous posts, the rise of social media is something that will change our life, if it hasn't already done so. Maybe one day, because of my multinational network on Facebook, I would be lead to places that I have never considered or thought about, who knows?

09 October 2011

The Constantly Changing Industry

If there is one thing I learn about the constantly changing industry, it would be the rise of digital and social media. As we all know, mobile phone and social media has already become a fundamental part of our daily lifestyle. Traditional media such as TVC and prints are nowhere near as effect as they were 10 years ago because people are simply not watching them nearly as much as they used to. As Tim Evans has stated in his interview, mobile advertising is one of THE area that his team will focus at; coming from the largest digital agency in Australia I think it's fair to assume this is because it has the largest potential.

From the interview, research and what we learned in this program, I would say the way to deal with changes is to accept it, study it and become part of it ASAP. It is always important, especially in this industry to become a leader and get your name out there. For example using Facebook as a media channel was not something that would be included in a media plan 4-5 years ago. However, the first person that started this method would have became leader and dominated the market, atleast during the initial stage.

So my take on changes is not to go against, but go with the flow as soon as possible. In terms of impact, it is too early for me to predict what area of advertising will I fall into, but it would be a great accomplishment if I can one day become the innovator to start a trend within the Advertising world. For example the use of Facebook and Twitter as a marketing tool.

05 October 2011

My Future in this Industry

At this stage of my study, the area that attracts me the most in Strategy Planning. As I have no prior education in the field of communication, advertising, design or media, creative and media agencies are out of my target list. The reason i want to be a part of the planning department is because it seems to be everything about advertising packed into one. It requires thoughtful research and thinking, as well as creative ideas about the direction of the brand or campaign.

In terms of skills and knowledge, I don't claim to be the most hardworking or intelligent student. Many students in the course have worked in the industry and have much deeper knowledge than I do and others just simply work harder than I do. I would consider myself as a better employee than a student, because I somehow take more responsibilities in others' work and business, rather than my own grades. However, that being said I am confident that I have learn what I need to enter the industry, and because at this stage of my life, this is what I want to do the most, I am very eager to learn from the real world and ready to push myself.

Although I grew up in Australia since 8 yrs old, I am still very familiar with the Hong Kong and asian culture and I would actually like to start my career in Hong Kong. Partly because I have never really experienced what it's like to work there, but also I find myself having a great advantage of speaking fluent English, Chinese, Cantonese and although not relevant, conversational Japanese. As Hong Kong is one of the major city that links up the Chinese market and the Western market, I feel like it is an exciting place to work at with opportunities to venture into the China market as well as other Western countries.

The challenge would be adapting to the fast pace living style and the fact that I have no prior working experience I guess.