Expressing Dissatisfaction About the Future... Bizarre Behavior Trend
Youth Feel Disillusioned by China's Economic Slowdown
Among China's youth, eccentric behaviors such as imitating birds or going to work in pajamas have become popular. These actions appear to be expressions of dissatisfaction with an uncertain future.
On the 2nd (local time), The New York Times (NYT) reported that the trend of 'bird imitation' is spreading among Chinese university students.
Photos and videos posted on social media show them wearing oversized T-shirts, hiding their legs, and pulling their arms out from below the T-shirt sleeves to hold onto bed rails, making their hands look like bird claws.
Zhao Weixiang (22), a biology major from Shanxi Province in northern China, posted a photoshopped image of himself perched on a utility pole in the shape of a bird on social media with the caption, "Let's stop studying and become birds now." He explained, "One day during class, I saw birds flying in the sky and envied their freedom."
The NYT reported that university students often post such photos and videos mainly to express stress related to academics or employment.
Sociologists view this phenomenon as an extension of the 'tang ping' (lying flat) trend. Tang ping means lying down and doing nothing; it emerged around 2021 as a new term when China's economic growth slowed and the wealth gap widened, increasing uncertainty about the future among young people.
On Chinese social media, this term is used to describe a socio-economic reality where individual efforts are futile amid predetermined trends, leading to resignation. Xiang Biao, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, diagnosed, "Many Chinese youths who were told from a young age that studying and working hard would lead to a bright future are now disillusioned by the slowdown of the Chinese economy."
Recently, a culture of going to work dressed in bizarre and comical outfits, such as wearing multiple layers of pajamas, has also spread among young people in China. Foreign media analyzed that this phenomenon is also influenced by dissatisfaction with low wages and frequent overtime work.
Xiang added, "Young people graduated from university and became adults only to become victims of the economic downturn. They have begun to ask themselves, 'Why did I study so hard?'"
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
