Young people in China are becoming more rebellious, questioning their nation’s traditional expectations of career and family
Amazing arc, like watching the last 120 years in the US compressed down to a couple decades. From rural to industrial powerhouse to the kids going “fuck this shit”.
What’s next?
It’s like watching a speedrun: Capitalism any%.
Next? Some of them have to be thinking “wait, this is a communist country, isn’t it?”
I don’t think anyone think China is a communist/socialist country for a very long time. Maybe except older generations and tankies.
Ironically, I have met more tankies in six month on lemmy than my 18 years growing up in China. It is truly a wild culture shock that I didn’t expect. LOL.
A “tankie” isn’t a communist anymore than an American Republican wants individual freedom.
Anyone that supports China is going to say it’s communist, and anyone from the right shitting on China is going to say they’re communist.
But both groups are pretty much the same and no one should listen to either
The CCP doesn’t even claim that China is communist though. Idk where you’re getting that from.
My pet conspiracy theory is that a bunch of tankies are actually CIA trolls, in an effort to tie criticism of the US together with completely bonkers causes. The end goal being that if you think the US is not the best thing ever, you must be a tankie, and you support authoritarian regimes like Iran and China.
Some of the tankie(bots) I have argued with on here are so contrarian that it seems that way to me, as well. They don’t try to argue in good faith, and they never concede no matter how much they are proven wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of them are bots or bad actors either from the CIA, China, or Russia.
it’s not that ironic if you look at lemmy’s origin.
What’s next?
A gigantic Lemmy instance?
They already have two.
Civil war, if our current trajectory is any indication.
So… there’ll be a lot of great Chinese punk music soon?
There was an explosion of Chinese punk/alt bands late 90s/ early 2000s but they gave way to hip hop/pop. Still a decent scene in Beijing. One of my favorite bands from that era is called Wood pushing melon (木推瓜).
https://youtu.be/j_dq-tQuNrA?si=3tEzKqRpgVUlm2ynThe lead singer left that band and started an incredible tribal folk group called Dawanggang next
https://youtu.be/toaZqu_4hMw?si=1XQP0yKpz3rsGTD0Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/j_dq-tQuNrA?si=3tEzKqRpgVUlm2yn
https://piped.video/toaZqu_4hMw?si=1XQP0yKpz3rsGTD0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yeah. China’s speed running to true communism at a pace I wasn’t expecting. There’s a legitimate chance for the elimination of scarcity of basic goods in China “soon”, which would lead to a flourishing of the arts.
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about?
That would be awesome
Surely this is sarcasm.
Lol! This piss-take xD
Got any good examples of this?
I do know that between 1950 and 2000 poverty and starvation dropped like a stone. I havent been watching closely enough to tell for the past couple decades. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but it can be hard to tell what’s slavery and what’s improvement of living standards through the media and on such short timescales
I know theyre installing a ton of solar/wind. Superbundance could happen there and that could be great. I got my fingers crossed.
How’s agriculture doing?
I think they’re very well positioned with electric cars and are going to take marketshare from everyone else in that industry.
I hope they quit killing the sea and bossing around their neighbors
Their effots in Africa are probably going to benefit them greatly. I hope they arent doing to Africa whatthre US did with South America in early/mid 20th century… with the saddling of unpayable debts, extracting resources and installing viscious dictators
I read recently OPECy folks are openly conspiring to flood Africas market with cheap and shitty fossil fuel power plants and cars to expand the oil market. It’d be rad someone flooded it with cheaper and better electric cars/heatpumps and renewable power. I wish the US/Europe would
They have an interesting strategy where they workout expenses for the year if they lived minimal. It might be 9k. So they work for a few months and save up that money then quit their job and “lay flat” for the rest of the year.
Honestly, that sounds amazing, and illustrates why, “can you explain this gap on your resume” is such a bull shit interview question.
What? This illustrates exactly why it’s an important question.
If you’re responsible for hiring are you going to hire someone who has gaps in their resume or someone that’s been consistently working?
The person with gaps on their resume is more likely to quit on you. You aren’t going to hire someone who looks like they will quit.
The actual solution is to figure out why work sucks so hard that people find loopholes like this to get around it. If i can work 4 months out of the year and take care of myself, why would you want to eork any more?
Agreed but employers don’t care. They are the ones with the power. Having you work 60 hours a week is a means of control. If you quit there is a line of people out there that’s willing to take the job. Employers know this and exploit it.
If you think you can change this power dynamic then go for it, but there are too many desperate people out there for that to happen.
one of the problems of modern work environments is that workplaces get saturated with people who actually should leave but don’t. It is a bullshit question even if (like many modern problems) it would make sense if we were still in an era where corporations valued long term employees and mutual loyalty was a thing that existed.
“well I work for a short time and then just quit and do nothing.”
I can see why they might ask the question. I don’t expect people to put the business above themselves, but I certainly would be less likely to hire someone if I knew they were just going to quit after a few months because they have no ambition.
I don’t blame them… The older generations really screwed the pooch for the younger generation. Basically made China inhospitable for foreign investment so all these young people are left high and dry with fancy degrees and no jobs.
It’s kinda not really the older generations, though, it’s more capitalism. Where does that start and end?
It’s kinda hard to argue that the older generations aren’t the ones who put capitalism into effect. After all, capitalism in China is younger than some of us on this very forum.
Wait, the problem in your mind with China is that it’s not as safe for multinational companies to exploit their populace?
China’s own megaconglomerates aren’t doing any better. They openly steal from their populace, and exploit their workers in inhumane ways. Just look at the mass embezzlement of peoples life savings in the housing market by ultra mega sized publicly traded corporations. China is basically a hyper capitalist corporatocracy, with extra authoritarianism sprinkled in with no upside.
Although this only works when you’re not living a minimal existence, paycheck-to-paycheck.
The next step will be to pay them less.
Damn, I’d be sore after laying flat for months.
I really enjoyed this story format. It showed the strength of photographic journalism
EDIT: i present to you: the duality of humanity.
I was confused how I was supposed to read it. I just got a single image and a piece of text that says “tap story”, which doesn’t mean anything.
Well it’s the same format as Twitch, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. stories
Twitch? The streaming platform?
This is not how I want to read an article.
The Tiktok Manga Slideshow format has finally migrated to major news sites I see.
God I hate tech this decade.
I mind this less than the stupid video articles.
God I hate tech this decade.
I feel this sentiment in my bones. I know it gets overused, but the word of the decade so far really does seem to be enshittification. The only thing that seems to be getting better is self-hosting, which is still a massive pain in the ass for a lot of things.
It’s just buzzfeed articles returning from the grave. They’d split a few paragraphs over 20 pages somehow
Over half of Americans read at below a 6th grade reading level. So it makes sense that they want to bring back picture books.
Is this still true? Damn shame if so
I think it makes it harder for us to scrape their site and copy and paste it here.
Humorously, maybe the writer wants to let it rot
Not great but not terrible. At least there were no ads.
It’s like a picture book!
Might be the worst experience I’ve had. We don’t want books. We got rid of books
摆烂 bai3lan4
A slang term that means “stop striving”, I’d say it’s loosely akin to the phrase “quiet quitting” but a bit more general.
Fuck yeah China! (not the government)
Also referenced in the article was the phrase 'tang ping’ (lying flat, 躺平)
Will they be planking soon?
GLOBAL GENERAL STRIKE, A BLOB CAN DREAM.
They just like me fr
Can a Chinese speaker clarify something? “Let it rot” in other sources is 摆烂 (Bải làn) which translates as “showed away” When I translate “let it rot” I get either 让它腐烂 (simplified) or 讓它腐爛.
What’s the difference? How does showed away become let it rot?
This is another case of a foreign word don’t have a good translation in English (and vise versa). Both 摆烂 and 让它腐烂 don’t have the same tone as “let it rot”.
To me, “let it rot” means watching something collapse with a sense of enjoyment. I cannot recall a Chinese word with this exact sentiment of the top of my head. But I can try to explain both Chinese words.
“让它腐烂” is the literal translation of “let it rot”, word for word. It don’t have the cultural and sentimental meaning behind it, merely stating the fact. More like “let the leave rot in the compost pile”.
“摆烂” is probably what the article is referring to. Its meaning is similar to civil disobedience, and 躺平 (“lay flat”, another word that was popular couple years ago).
“摆” means put, “烂” means something poorly made, broken, etc. And “烂” also means rot, which is probably where the translation came from. “摆烂”, together as a word, means “displaying a broken (bad) attitude, no matter the outside influence”.
The original usage is much more playful, like your cat would lay on the floor no matter what toy or treat you give it, then it is 摆烂. But with the recent increase in pressure for many young people in China. 摆烂 and 躺平 (lay flat) become more of a act of civil disobedience and refusal to participate in the broken system/economy.
So 摆烂 is not a exact translation for “let it rot”, but they do share the meaning of “no action” and the sentiment of joy. And “let it rot” sounds much cooler and concise than my explanation.
Hey I just wanted to say thank you for the breakdown. The intricacies of translation are interesting.
Ditto. Respect for anyone who not only knows two languages well enough to explain one in the other, but is willing to share that knowledge.
Thank you for your kind message. China is my cultural root, and both its culture and language are of great importance to me.
I was very active on r/translator before I left reddit. It is my great joy to see that I still have opportunity here to convey Chinese cultures to kind strangers on lemmy.
The article title sounded like they were letting the system rot, but if they’re laying flat then the metaphor is that the people are laying and rotting? Or did I misunderstand
That is what I mean when I say there is no exact translation.
摆烂 doesn’t mean see the system collapse, merely displaying the lack of interest to participate. So the speaker is displaying the 烂 (bad attitude, rot), not the system. I believe 摆烂 is more akin to “civil disobedience” or “quit quitting”, than “let it rot” (if anything, it is closer to the literal meaning of “let me rot”).
I want to make it more clear in my original comment, but I was afraid it would be too verbose and distract the reader.
Thank you for the commentary. I figured there was some cultural and lingual baggage that was the difference.
Would “just throw the whole thing away” (as in throw it into the trash) be a more fitting translation for the sentiment than “let it rot” then?
The problem with The Rat race is, even if you win, you’re still a rat.
I’ll say this some time and someone will tell me I’m an idiot for quoting some awful person, but right now - not knowing if it is a quote or not - I love this
Late stage capitalism is a blight of humanity, there’s gotta have to be some sort of revolutionary changes to society at the rate this is all headed. The world is not healthy right now.
Funny, people in the USA have been doing that for 20+ years
Tune in, turn on, burn out
Weirdly TikTok only shows me streets full with fentinels in USA. I don’t know if that’s propaganda or is it real bad out there
Propaganda. Every city has one or two neighborhoods (usually full of working class minorities) where police dump the homeless and addicts from everywhere else. Each of those areas has one or two particularly bad streets that look like shit and make for great fear mongering.
This message keeps being spread. Wonder how significant it is or if it’s like a handful and propagandists are making it out to be a trend?
This was one of my first thoughts on this too. Reminds me a bit of those western millennial/GenZ articles that are blown way out of proportion
Regardless I hope the governmental response is steering towards a bright solarpunk future of abundance and a healthy ecosystem to regain relevance for the next generation. Further encroachment of authoritarianism to maintain power and further alienate their smart kids doesn’t help anyone long-term
I hope the same for all governments, really
It is as much a trend as “quit quitting” is a trend. To the point Chinese official media has written several articles urging people to not 摆烂 (aka “let it rot”)
Actual article:
Crazy when an authoritarian country like China that can just execute people when they don’t stay on message, get way off message and say shit like this. Boomer’s who bitch about people not wanting to work anymore, this lets me truthfully respond with “even with a gun to their head, today’s hopeless work is probably worse than death”
China is a authoritarian country, but it doesn’t have the resource and political will to capture and kill every person that doesn’t align with CCP.
Things can get pretty ugly (aka execution, torture, or removal of livelihood) for strong anti-governmental message, like bridgeman; significant public figure expressing dissent (even as a joke), like Bi Fujian, the host of the most popular variety show; or significant public event like 乌衣 and other activist in the chained woman incident.
But Chinese government is not going to kill someone for saying “I am so fucking overworked”. Arrest for telling the story to foreign media (which obviously is neither humane nor legal, I am not trying to defend CCP), maybe, but not worth any more serious punishment.
Schroedinger’s Communist:
The country is ruled by wealthy elite, but still communist. The government is incompetent, but also all powerful.
It’s a fascist dictorship, and only as powerful as it’s enforcers are loyal.
If things get bad, it can collapse overnight.
The country is ruled by wealthy elite, but still communist.
“This polygon has three sides, but it’s still a triangle.”
One of the things I learned reading Three Body Problem is that their police problems mirror the US a lot more than either country might realize. One of the characters is a cop who knows he’s supposed to act a certain way in investigations, but doesn’t give a shit. In other words, there’s an expectation that their police respect certain civil liberties, but they often don’t. Which is basically what happens in the US.
That book was originally published in 2008, though, and since then, Xi Jinping has been pushing things back to being more explicitly authoritarian. Oh, and the author has made some statements in support of that, so that’s great.
Love how y’all hate anti lockdown protesters in USA but cheer them on in China.
Um. In the U.S. I could still go for a walk outside, or out to the grocery store, or grab some fast-food at the drive-through. In China people were being boarded up in their homes… as in, literally boarded up with hammer and nails.
And solders https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818
The anti-lockdown protest, later known as A4 revolution was triggered by Ürümqi fire where the firetruck was unable to reach the scene because no one dare to leave their residence to move their parked cars.
As a side note, A4 protest started as a single female student holding a piece of white paper in Nanjing Communication College for a entire day in solitude (the man in the picture is allegedly a teacher of the college, taking away her white paper)
and many other students joining her later in the night
Later the A4 (or “white paper”) symbolism extended to the entire world as a pillar against oppression and censorship. We should all remember this brave young lady.
