Surviving China's high unemployment and cost of living

how did this movement in China go from Young students and graduation gowns to people living in tents on City Pavements it's called Tong ping or lying flat in English lots of young people in China at the time when the job market was hit hard by the nation's economic slowdown some started thinking why not just life left if you want to join in the rules are simple do not pursue a career buy a house get married have children or spend more than you need to survive of course not everyone has been so extreme yet all online Rumblings about Tong ping were removed from Chinese social media before a new name for the movement popped up the Chinese phrase for letting Rod is by Lan it suggests a mentality of young Chinese that they can't really control anything including their lives and future so why not just give up so why are young people in China letting it rot so it started from an online post back in 2021 in which a man in his mid-20s wrote about how he had embraced a low desire lifestyle and just lying down and doing nothing for two years and he had no job then the post went viral on social media it was quickly taken down because apparently it goes against the wish of the Garment that everyone should work hard and dedicate their life to build a better country working hard also doesn't necessarily mean High returns many young people actually have no choice but to do some flexible jobs with low threshold to enter for example delivery men and here in Beijing in recent month I started to see more and more delivery women honestly and many are quite Young so people are doing what they can to get by many have turned to live streaming hoping to draw enough followers to start earning money foreign the internet has become a breeding ground for common grievances among young people like this user about studying her whole life [Music] um scroll through conversations and you start to see posts like this with characters from scenes like this [Music] is his name is [Music] hahaha [Laughter] kongiji first appeared in a short story written by Chinese author Lou Swain in 1919. since then his story has been told again and again the story has been turned into a short film that came out in 1981 and in 1998 it has been adapted for this stage as a U.S Opera which is a operatic form that originated in lucerne's hometown of xiaoxing more recently the character has popped up across Chinese social media under the hashtag kongiji literature and his story has resonated with the Let It Rock movement Kong is depicted as this contradictory character so on the one hand he is an educated person who likes to talk in literary jargon on the other hand he is unable to pass the Imperial examination system which is required to enter even the lowest level of the Civil bureaucracy but why is he relatable to Chinese youth it's no wonder that China's young graduates are identifying with Konichi youth unemployment in China is at a record high in May 2023 unemployment rate for young Chinese between the age of 16 to 24 in urban areas is at 20.8 percent and this means one in every five Chinese urbanites are unemployed there's a record number of graduates who just graduated in June are entering into the workforce 11.6 million of them to be precise and they're all competing for jobs Kong EG has become a symbol of that struggle a more recent resition is by guishango who is a content creator and a singer on China's video sharing platform billability which I guess is the Chinese equivalent of YouTube he wrote this very sarcastic song called The Sunny happy Konichi yangbang kailanganji who believes in what the government tells him you know you're poor because you don't work hard enough but this koichi then you know has to work the 996 system which means he's working from 9am until 9 pm six days a week and then only to end up being dragged Away by police because he dared to ask to be paid and this song attracted 3 million views in a day until the senses shut it down with things so bad in cities like Beijing and Shanghai young people have started to push back against the pressures of modern Chinese Society so they've decided to let it rot lying flat sounds like one thing and let it rot another but really the difference is marginal they're basically the same but let it raw sounds worse than tamping the biggest difference is let it rot is a newer name for an old philosophy so just give up you can also enjoy anything even if you work hard you may not have a better life and better future it also comes with a growing list of terms to know there is another bad word for it it's called Evolution that is even though you know there won't be anything to gain in the end you have no choice but to compete and the government is pushing young people into the workforce no matter what the job is Chinese Central television published an online commentary which shifted the blame on individuals saying that all koiji had to do was to work hard towards improving his circumstances and the commentary implored young people to do the same so what are the options young people can stay in big cities or they can move into one of China's lower tier cities China divides its cities into a tier system with the premier economic powerhouses in tier one plus tier one includes China's major up-and-coming cities which have undergone rapid Urban Development in recent years tier 2 cities are considered to be important economic hubs and include many provincial capitals tier 3 typically includes Regional hubs with significant economic activity tier 4 cities are typically those with moderate levels of economic activity tier V cities are on the lowest run and are typically smaller with lower levels of economic activity some of these lower tier cities are on the rise given the quality of life in bigger cities meihoko is one of them foreign [Music] man uprooted his family from a provincial capital to move to this tier 4 City [Music] um despite a nationwide population decline the city has seen a population growth of 60 percent in recent years but life isn't always greener on the other side so if you can't make it in a big city and you can't make it in a small City where do you go the Llama Temple is a famous Buddhist site in the capital of Beijing tens of thousands of people visit each day many of them are young people Contour connections [Music] some are hopeful While others are less subtle since their fate ultimately depends on the health of the Chinese economy [Music] thank you

Channel: South China Morning Post

Views: 930,527

Keywords: China jobs, China youth unemployment, Lama temple, SCMP, SCMP Explains, South China Morning Post, Tang ping, bai lan, let it rot, lie flat, lie flat movement China

Id: rLDGBYJwFTo

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023