Lack of trust hinders creativity - Tricia Wang

Tricia Wang

After two years of on-the-ground research in China sociologist Tricia Wang is drawing some conclusions on how the lack of trust and creativity interact. Trust with individuals and institutions if key to allow creativity to blossom, she writes  on the website 88-bar. A story about hacker spaces. 

Tricia Wang:

In my work, I show that the lack of trust between individuals and social trust with institutions is hindering creativity. The problem is that institutions can really promote or damper the expression of creativity, and in the case of China, its education system (combined with cultural elements and political control) has hindered, not promoted, creativity among Chinese youth... 

But creativity is not about how much you know, but about how much you can think beyond what you know. 

The reality is that Chinese people are not as creative as they could be, for now. There is nothing inherently uncreative about the Chinese. I mean who really thinks that about Chinese people after spending a day on the streets. Migrants and youth all over are doing mind-blowing stuff. China is dripping with creativity as your research confirms. But we aren’t’ seeing the mind-blowing stuff happening within formal spaces. 

So where are the creatives in China? I don’t think the future crazy ass disruptive innovators are going to come through Tsinghua, this is not to say that there aren’t brilliant freaking people there doing cool stuff.

More at 88-bar, and the stories of some real creative hackers.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

Tricia Wang will be speaking in New Zealand in the second week of February 2013. Are you interested in having her as a speaker too? Do get in touch for her availability and conditions.

How would your life in China look like without VPN? That question a lot of people are asking themselves as the internet filter systems gained the ability to shut down their VPN's and China's media kindly point out foreign VPN's are illegal in China anyway. The China Weekly Hangout will focus on Thursday 20 December on this issue.  Read the full announcement here, or register directly here.

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