Chinese youth culture - the one and the many

It was a pleasure watching the interview of the bright young Alex - so upbeat and articulate, and speaking revealingly as a contemporary Chinese youth. The number one question that interview raised in my mind was how typical he was of Chinese youth as a whole. I had hoped to find other personal narratives reflecting comparisons and contrasts, but found little. What I did find in some ways may be even better - a recent thorough survey of Chinese youth culture that effectively answered my number one question about Alex. It also begs a question or two, leading finally to considerations of one of the main elements of contemporary youth - their use of the Internet. But with that, I am ahead of myself. Lets briefly hit the main points of Alex's interview, and then look at some data from a survey of Chinese youth ages 16-29 completed in December, 2007. Alex is a Chinese college student studying computer science (I assume here in North Carolina). He was interviewed by Dr. James Anderson. In summary, Alex said his hopes and desires for the future are just to be successful, and maybe help his family. This is similar, he noted, to his parents generation except that they had "smaller" goals to live and dress better, while the younger generation has bigger goals. Work means a good future in a comfortable career helpful to his family and country. His major could help his country perhaps by bringing high technology back to China. The future looks good for him now, noting that the economy is doing quite well and the government becoming more democratic. He sees the government as having already taken lessons from the Cultural Revolution and the Beijing Massacre, giving them experience that will aid the future. Parents and the government show responsiveness to youth in their emphasis on education, which is very important, costly, and devoted. Today's youth mainly pay attention to competition in the job market, which is much more intense as universities have increased capacity and many graduates are looking for jobs. The young generation likes western culture, with big influences from Europe, America, Japan and Korea. They pick western culture in a mixed way, having grown up in China and retaining Chinese culture which they do not dispose of. Their pop culture is a mix that adapts western culture to Chinese tradition. For example, dressing western does not make them think western. A web-based organization called Kairos Future out of Stockholm, Sweden posted this month (March, 08) a feature titled: "Chinese Youth - Down to earth people reaching for the stars". The feature, written by Ms Anna Kiefer, summarizes a December, 2007 survey of 22,000 Chinese, with an older comparison group to contrast with the emphasized study of youth from ages 16 to 29. I begin with a condensed paraphrase of her opening statement... Young Chinese are very optimistic about the future and have great plans. Important is to have a prosperous career, high status and earn a lot of money. Material possessions and fame are more important to Chinese than to Europeans. They [claim] importance to spiritual values, anxious to blend in, want to be similar to friends, and to live up to the expectations of others as well as of self. This dual loyalty may reflect the one-child policy. I will highlight a few of the specifics... They want it all: high status and high salary jobs with good benefits, but they know they have to work hard to achieve this. 60% of young men and 42% of young women want to start their own company. 81% think material possessions provide meaning in life. 60% consider certain brands important to express identity - three times the number of European youth who answered the same. But most answer "yes" that spiritual values should be more emphasized. Typical youth are satisfied with most aspects of their lives. Most are optimistic about the future, believing they have complete control over their own future and confident of having a good job. 82% say they have a lot in common with their compatriots compared to 48% in Europe. But a much larger proportion want to live and work abroad for a temporary period compared to Europeans. Watching TV is the most common media habit. Books are popular. Only 20% read foreign magazines and newspapers. Very few listen to radio. The number one activity during free time is surfing the Internet, ahead of spending time with family and friends or listening to music. My immediate observation is that my question about Alex is answered: according to what I read here, Alex is quite typical. Another observation is how easy it is to answer "yes" to the spiritual values question, but how far removed that is from meaning it and acting accordingly, for which the data compellingly proves otherwise. Chinese materialists are no different than American (whether they warm Sunday morning pews or not) in failing to recognize that any spirituality demands the primacy of an inner orientation that does not deny the material but puts it in its place. This will soon cost them, because they have a warped sense of reality. I wish them well and do not belittle the value and legitimacy of their optimism, but it needs to have a firm foundation in reality as a stable platform to construct their future. Their sense of invincibility will make spectacular success stories out of some, but jerk the rug out from others. They seem to me to be out of touch politically, spiritually and environmentally (including in regard to resources). Economics has been operating under the fallacy that continued growth is not checked by the natural infrastructure. It is its own world. This is building a Tower of Babel, and the Chinese youth seem to be busy laying the bricks. But there is one other concern I wish to bring out. The survey presented above was conducted online. This makes the results biased toward computer users. The chapter in Weston and Jenson about the Internet by Xiao Qiang was revealing in showing how the government sustains some level of success in controlling Internet content, but with diminishing returns as reform and greater openness inevitably result from the expansion of its use. The effect on society is quite profound: affecting public opinion, influencing and drawing out other media, and occassionally leading to successful reforms and acts of justice in response to public outcries, as in the case of police brutality on Sun Zhigang. Parallel to this article, The World News Network posted on March 4, 2008 on YOP.com (Youth Opportunities) a Reuters release (February 21, 2008) titled "Chinese youth push political expression online." This feature was very similar in content to that of Xiao Qiang. But it differed in having a youth orientation, and was an eye-openner on how extensively Chinese youth use the Internet and how fast that is growing. The feature said that the number of people using the Internet at the end of 2007 was up 50% from 2006. It said there is an "additional 200,000 new Chinese users going online every day", and that "the vast majority of Chinese users are young people - 70% are under 30." Telecom expert Duncan Clark was quoted that "Technology is driving reforms in Chinese society right now much more than political reform." Internet addiction and enthusiasm (long hours of use) show statistics that appear to surpass those of the United States among Chinese youth. The Kairos Future survey may be biased in only sampling online users, but that is hardly a subculture of Chinese youth. Rather, it is the mainstream. For balance, I would like to see a survey of rural agrarian youth. But the picture I am seeing here is, I believe, the bigger story. And Alex, our computer science major, fits right in.