I finally got the chance to build a closer connection with City Disc at the end of this term.
City Disc is a team composed of five young people in Wenzhou, focusing on the slow-paced documentation of local city culture. Deeply attracted by their output, I followed their social media account on Xiaohongshu and joined their online community at the beginning of the research in May.
Until the account of ArchiWenzhou got a preliminary exposure on Xiaohongshu last month and got a new follower who was a member of City Disc, I felt it was the time to invite them to an interview – The understandings of the cultural background in Wenzhou I got from the past six months enabled me to conduct the conversations with them in a high quality way, asking useful questions rather than simply absorbing the knowledge which I had not been familiar enough.
Consequently, I had an online interview with the founder Tang and the content creator Heidan of City Disc on November 23rd, with a duration of 75 minutes.
The interview had three topics: their motives to build this team, their daily operations and their attempts at external cooperations and commercializations. At the same time, I introduced what I had done throughout the year so that they could also understand further on my project.
There are some excerpts really impressive and instructive to me:
About the entry point of City Disc
小唐：“一开始 City Disc建立，是希望跟街巷去做一些链接，然后是以小见大的感觉。这和这个城市本身的气质是有关系的。我们不像北京，不像上海，他们可以做非常大气，非常磅礴的一些事情。温州更像是一个小城市，它会有小而精的一些温馨感。所以我们会希望以街巷的视觉，通过扫街去让大家在视觉上很直接地看到温州的可爱之处，然后再去引出比较深入的内容。”
Tang: “At the beginning, City Disc was established in the hope of making some links with the streets and alleys, in the sense of seeing the big from the small. This is also relevant to the city’s own temperament. We are not like Beijing or Shanghai. They can do things very majestic. Wenzhou is more like a small city with an exquisite sense of warmth. Therefore, we would like to capture the street visions to let everyone see the lovely points of Wenzhou directly, and then lead to a more in-depth content.”
About the definition of local culture (在地文化 ‘Zai Di Wen Hua’)
黑蛋：“现在幸运的是，我们这一代年轻人已经开始发现了自己对家乡温州并不是那么了解，所以我们才慢慢地愿意去研究温州的文化，去发现它的有趣和多元。City Disc一直是聚焦是温州在地文化的内容。对于在地文化的定义，我们也是思考了很久，后来是打算把“在”和“地”两个字分开解释。“在”是指现代的，正在进行的，这是一种生活方式。“地” 的话，就是一个地方经过一些时间积累，沉淀下来的东西。 City Disc 就是打算从地缘文化为出发，因为我们觉得地缘文化是一个会延伸并影响到整个地区的文化现象。我们要做的就是探索背后的一些文化溯源。”
Heidan: “Fortunately, young people of our generation have begun to find out that we do not know Wenzhou so well. Therefore, we are gradually willing to study the culture of Wenzhou, and discover its interesting and diversified parts. City Disc has always been focusing on ‘在地文化 Zai Di Wen Hua’ (local cultural in English. ‘Zai Di’ means local while ‘Wen Hua’ means culture) in Wenzhou. We have been thinking for a long time about the definition of ‘Zai Di’ (local), and then we decided to explain the words ‘Zai’ and ‘Di’ separately. The word ‘Zai’ means something modern and ongoing, representing a kind of lifestyle. The word ‘Di’ refers to the things that have been accumulated in a place over time. City Disc intends to start with geo-culture, because we feel it is a cultural phenomenon that extends and affects the whole region. What we want to do is to explore some of the cultural traces behind it.”
Interventions on the residents in old buildings
黑蛋：“之前我们去拍一些老建筑的时候，很多里面住在建筑里的人，他们其实也不知道这个建筑曾经有什么样的故事，不知道原来自己住的这个环境，这个建筑里面是这么的美，有这么多的细节。有一些细节做的很精美，比如说栏杆，还有一些浮雕。当我们将这些照片放在他们的面前的时候，他们就会突然意识到这些美丽的事物就是他们最熟悉的，每天在自己的身边的东西。”
Heidan: “When we went to shoot some old buildings before, for many people who lived inside these buildings, they actually didn’t know what kind of story this building used to have. They were not aware that the inside of this buildings was so beautiful with so many details. There were indeed some corners that were delicately done, like the railings, and some of the reliefs. When we put these photos in front of them, they would suddenly realise that these beautiful things were exactly what they were most familiar with and around them every day.”
The main focus and the meaning of the online community
黑蛋：“我们的内容其实都是来源于我们已经有的东西了。现代社会所拥有的东西其实已经太多了，我们不是需要再去创造一些新的东西，而是要从现在已经有的东西中去寻找到自己真正想要的东西。所以我们 City Disc 的社群里面更多的是分享，比如近期有哪些骑行的路线，或者是有哪些可以打卡游玩的。甚至我们会聊到温州某条街以前的样子，经历了多少的改变和已经消失的一些东西。因为时代的变迁不得已的一些改变，大家对此是惋惜还是说期盼，这样的心理状态，其实都是这个社群需要去交流跟互动的内容。”
Heidan: “Our content actually all comes from what we already have now. Modern society has so much stuff that we need to create nothing new but find what we really want from the existing stuff. That’s why the community of City Disc is more about sharing. For example, what cycling routes we recommend recently, or what we think worth hitting up for fun. We also talk about how a certain street in Wenzhou used to look like, how much it has changed and what has disappeared in this street. For those inevitable changes by times, if people are sorry about them or looking forward to these changes. Such kind of mindset is also the information that this community hopes everyone to communicate and share.”
小唐：“小红书群里面其实有很多人年龄不小了，可能40多50都有。对我们来说比较感慨的是，好像 City Disc 的内容，它不只是吸引年轻人，也可以吸引一些已经对温州非常了解的人。他们也很认可我们的内容，也希望能够加入比较严肃的探讨。他们也很愿意去聊，我觉得这可能是社群的意义吧，我们不只希望带动年轻人探索温州的文化或者美学，也想年纪大一点的人愿意跟我们分享他们所知道的温州和了解的温州是什么样子的。”
Tang: “There are many people in the community who are no longer young, maybe over 40 or 50 years old. What is appreciative for us is that our content does not just attract young people only, it also attracts people who already know Wenzhou very well. They also recognise our content and want to join in some serious discussions. They are very willing to talk about Wenzhou, and I think that’s probably one of the important meanings of this community. We don’t just want to drive young people to explore Wenzhou’s culture or aesthetics, but also want older generations to share with us what they know about Wenzhou.”
The elderly-friendly city
小唐：“我觉得一个城市对老年人很好这个点是很值得去炫耀的。这是我的一个小想法，个人来讲的话，我可能会觉得旧的很重要，就像为什么一个城市对老人友好这么重要，是因为我觉得只有展现出了对这个城市的老人很好，年轻人才敢在这个城市老去，才敢觉得我是安全的，在某一天我自己认为自己没价值的时候，这个城市仍然希望我能够过得很好，仍然希望我存在。
所以我们为什么去拍那些老街巷，甚至有一点点小小的缅怀的感觉，就是因为我们很希望让大家知道我们很重视这些老东西的价值。我们希望将对他们的回忆转换成当代的感受，并以一种更加容易接触到的方式呈现，让年轻人看到这些东西的美，这可能也是我们做 City Disc 其中的一个愿望。所以这个社群里面的一些沟通会让我们觉得 City Disc 真的有在做这个事情，有让大家感受到温馨的氛围。”
Tang: “I think the point of Wenzhou being nice to the elderly is something to brag about. Personally speaking, I feel that the old is important, just like why is it so important for a city to be friendly to the elderly. Only by showing that the elderly are well treated in this city, the young people will dare to grow old in this city and feel themselves safe. At a certain point when I feel myself having no value, there is still a city hoping that I can exist and have a good life.
So the reason why we chose to shoot those old streets and alleys, even with a sense of reminiscence, is because we want to let people know that we value these old things very much. We hope to convert those memories into contemporary feelings and present them in a more accessible way, so that young people can see the beauty of these things, which is probably one of our wishes in making City Disc. Therefore, the communication within the community makes us feel that City Disc is practically doing this, and there is a warm atmosphere for everyone.”
About de-commercialization
小唐：“很多人说要去商业化，其实是为了去除它目的性很强，让人感受到压迫的那一部分，但其实商业化的另一个点就是可持续性。我觉得这个点是非常有魅力的。一个品牌或一个人，你怎么能让很多人喜欢你和信任你，然后持续保持魅力和散发魅力，我觉得这个是一个很重要的特质。
对于现在温州的感觉，其实说实话，很多品牌他们确实很难活，所以他们想要赶紧得到一些钱，然后去支持他们的理想。可能有些时候发展着就会有一点点变味，或者是让大家感受不是特别好。所以有时候我们会想说，我们的去商业化，其实想去除的是很着急的部分，很焦虑的部分。对于 City Disc 来说的话，我们很幸运有这样一帮非常热血的人，大家也能够得到自己应有的报酬，再很慢很稳地去做这样的事情。”
Tang: “A lot of people are talking about de-commercialization, but it’s actually about removing the part that is too purposeful and makes people feel oppressed. The other point of commercialization is sustainability, which I think very fascinating. For a brand or a person, finding a way to make a lot of people like and trust you and being continuously attractive are very important traits to think about.
For my feeling of Wenzhou nowadays, to be honest, a lot of brands are really hard to survive, so they want to get some money in a hurry and then go to support their ideals. This might lead to the development being too far, or make people feel uncomfortable. So sometimes we would like to say that our de-commercialisation is actually trying to remove its anxious part. For City Disc, we are very lucky to have such a group of very enthusiastic people, and everyone can get their due reward, and then do things very slowly and steadily.”
There is one more point worth noticing. I did not know City Disc was also running a WeChat public account until the interview with them. After the interview, I searched it on WeChat and surprisingly found that the content here was more elaborate and well-curated compared with Xiaohongshu. Even though public account service on WeChat facilitate creators more space and freedom in producing content, as it was no longer trendy in recent years, the traffic was far more lower than Xiaohongshu.
It made me think further about the online operating part of the project: How could a new project guarantee it stability in the ever-changing internet environment? This might also be a topic worth exploring in the future.