how sad. at least they could take their own name or favorite food/color/activity and add "town"

  Been there; in my experience students need more than guidance, they need to be lead around like sheep, it can be very frustrating but it's the way it is most of the time. I had an idea crash and burn on me this morning. I'm teaching phonetics to kids and I gave pairs a block of phonetics cards each and had them play a sort of snap. Never seen so many near-fights break out at one time outside a football match, it was absolute chaos.

I tried once to have them imagine that it was 20 years in the future, and that they w ere having a class reunion.  The idea was that they would tell their classmates what the last 20 years had been like (if they were married, what kind of jobs they had, where did they live, etc.). They had about ten minutes to prepare.

They simply could not do it. Every time I asked someone, they kept insisting that there was no way to know the future.  I kept trying to explain that we dont know the future, that what the exercise is to do is to imagine/pretend but they still  could not do it.

0 creativity here. 

Yeah you basically have to give them all the sentences and let them just 'fill in the blanks'. That's the most creativity you're going to get.

I have had my university students successfully make 25 minute movies highlighting cultural differences as a Final Exam to show language ability and creativity. I explain the task and sit with each group(for about 10 minutes) of 6 to 8 students and after a 1.5 hour class, they are ready for action. Honestly, the results are quite amazing as they all complete the task and I am very pleased with the outcomes.

For some strange reason this idea is a huge hit and they are challenged in a way they have never been in the past.

Sounds similar to what happened when I tried doing an improv activity.  It has been a hit and miss.  At first it worked great then I tried it with first year university students and they just sat in their groups saying they needed more time.  It seemed only one group took in seriously.  I save it for smaller more advance classes.

It works well in some classes...My classes are about 25-30, Uni. I told 'em : Ok you have to use your imagination for this one. I open a new text file, pick 2 names from the class (a boy & a girl) and type the first sentence of a story : 'One Sunday morning Bob called Amy.' Then I scroll down and type the ending : 'And they lived happily ever after.' So this is seen by everyone on the screen. Everyone has to come in front of the class and type in one full sentence (or more if they wish) to continue the story. I explained to them (LOL) that obviously they can take the story in any direction they want. So it was actually a great fun, everyone was involved and actually had some pretty decent stories at the end. Another thing : I told the class to try to correct whatever their classmate wrote....We had to stop only in one class....Brain short circuit, I think...

some ideas dont work since the students are used to spending so much time in the classroom with the teacher, chinese students also tend to do home work in class with teachers around, my friend thinks this is why a lot of chinese people arent creative, i also had some trouble with students, they can do class work well but they sometimes mess up home work

Anything outside the classroom. My last school loved taking a load of students to a supermarket, or a park or a gym etc, the idea was to do some 'real' things and do it in English. So off we'd trek, 20 students 1 or 2 native English teachers and a couple of Chinese English teachers. Result? The only time the students even try English is when they are speaking to me or the other native English speaker to each other and the Chinese teachers they all speak Chinese!

But at least they got some shopping done.

I gave my IELTS class (9 students) an easy one - or so I thought!

I said, the situation is 2 people (usually 1 boy and 1 girl) are at a cafe having a conversation. Then, along comes a third person, and says to one of them "What are you doing here?" and continue...

The results were, mostly, painful :( After 30 mins (or more) 2 groups (of 3 each) had nothing!!!

Chinese children are uncreative by design.  A creative populace is a danger to the state.  A creative populace tends to ask questions and demand answers.  This behavior is counter to type of society the government wants to build here.  Unfortunately, they forgot one small detail:  Creativity and free thinking is needed to solve problems and China has some really big problems.  Now they need to change, but can't since everyone is a sheep.

You should of had them think of it first then draw a picture of the city that came to their mind. And after that you should have talked about it. I think you left out one important step. it was good that you wanted to talk about it. But it's like when I play a game. I have them write down the answer first so that I can see what it is. And I will know if someone guessed the answer correctly. It saves time and it also a way to make sure the student isn't just standing around. 

Have them write it down or draw it first so that you can take a look at it. Afterwards ask them to describe the place they just drew to the class!

Actually, I did something similar, and most of my students were up to the task. They had to create their own country, name it, name the main city, talk about the climate, etc., 10 things total. Most of the groups were able to come up with something creative or interesting, and a few were quite entertaining. I think it worked because it was a group project. On their own they may have been unable to do it properly. I also didn't have them make it up in one class, I told them about it several weeks in advance. I doubt they did it any earlier than a day or two beforehand, but they did complete it, and it made my last class of the semester entertaining.

However, when I had some kind of writing activity (up to 5 sentences, that's all) many of them were unable to complete it. Quite a few resorted to copying something from online or copying their neighbor. Why? It seemed like such a simple activity, and I wasn't grading on spelling or grammar. Is it a psychological thing, where they are unable to think in the classroom under a time limit? I guess I'll never know.

Making a movie. I put the students into groups with mixed levels so the stronger ones can help the weaker ones and had them think of ideas for a movie. Then I had them write a short screenplay and we were going to film it and string them all together to make a school film festival. The whole project took about 2 weeks. Out of 12 movies that got made, only about 2 were watchable since so many were just retarded, had horrible camera work, or the English was too messed up or too quiet to hear.