Shanghai was full of Shanghai. We went there to see the Finnish Radical Design Week 2012 event, organized by Finnish Consulate of Shanghai and Beijing. The event was organized to emphasize the Sino-Finnish relationships and to highlight modern Finnish Design. Our trip shortly put: lots of design, less Shanghai. Maybe this was the final kick to transform our state from 'discovering' to 'implementing', back to real life you know!

We arrived on a chilly Wednesday 12-10-31 afternoon. We were curious and went straight to the core of the Tongji University town. There was an opening ceremony of an Angry Birds activity park. After a while of searching with a French designer and a Romanian architect, also lost, and lots of help from local students, we found the place. The activity park was quite a surprise what a baby move it was. After recovering from the shock, we bravely walked through the unamusing 'amusement park' to enter the design world which we so bitterly left behind few months ago. The frames always look as sleek as possible, what you'd expect from a design community? But inside the common behavior of 'more important people' could be seen. Small circles. More of a pleasant surprise was the amount of genuine people, concerned about the environmental, economic and social issues of the future.

Our planets situation isn't completely hopeless. There were dozens and dozens of humane initiatives, all trying to ease this vast consumption and negligence towards the global issues. Some designers are making honest innovations to better the lives of the poor and forgotten, some designers are trying to figure out how to play by the rules of the global economy (and teach communities to exploit the system). These projects are maybe not on the level of mass media yet, but the designers, also all around Asia, have reacted quickly and are doing what they can.

After few days of seminars and events we found many friendly and opportunist persons around the Asia and the rest of the globe. We got to admire the enthusiasm of Chinese towards developing! Even the most successful designers were open for discussion, with anyone, whenever.

But, this is a travel blog after all, so let's talk about Shanghai. As was mentioned, we didn't have a lot of spare time to see the city, and on top of it the weather wasn't on our side. But what we did see in Shanghai, we loved: the atmosphere, the people, great views... And how easy it was to go for a cup of coffee or to a restaurant when people understood what you want and you understand them. We had almost forgotten how easy life can be when you don't need to fight for your food in several languages!

Our hotel was very nice and right next to the Bund and Nanjing Lu. Surprisingly just like in every other place in China it was the same in here: if the western hype-culture takes the tall, just walk 50m away from the popular streets and the city looks like traditional China. Not hidden very far away waits the one of the most interesting things about China, the contradiction between old and new, traditional and modern, western and south-east. We just don't get tired of exploring every corridor and corner of the Chinese culture. In summary, Shanghai was absolutely one of the best places on earth; we definitely are going back there to do some more of these tourist things and less design!