11 ms·
China’s Millennials
- treden 7y agois behind a paywall, how can I read this article?
- shishy 7y agohttps://outline.com/DxUste https://outline.com/DxUste
- bovermyer 7y agoI had never heard of Outline until just now.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- diN0bot 7y agoon iphone (and maybe safari desktop, too?) you can tap to the left of the URL (the icon with a few horizontal lines) to get a non-ad view that often shows the full article, too.
- noisem4ker 7y agoAlso known as Reader View in Firefox (all platforms).
- premek 7y agoin this case you can just f*ck the paywall https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fck-overlays/ppedokobpbdajgiejhnjfbdjlgobcpkp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fck-overlays/ppedo...
- skokage 7y agoLate to respond, but because outline sometimes doesn't work for me (for instance bloomberg articles), I've found it easier to just disable javascript in that tab via chrome dev tools.
- DavidHm 7y agoThis was extremely fascinating. Thanks for posting.
- wffurr 7y agoSeemed a little shallow to me and focused on a small slice of the Chinese population born between 1981 and 1996 (a widely-accepted birth year range for "millenials"). During those years, there was almost no Chinese middle class. All the growth in China's urban middle class happened well after 1996. Even with that growth, they're still greatly outnumbered by rural and working class families, whose millenial children are likely quite different from what's described in the article. This felt like an article describing American "hipsters" who are nowhere close to a majority of their birth cohort.
- thrwway483 7y agoI skimmed it, but didn't see much mention of something that I think is pretty big to my generation (I'm '83) in the West: counterculture, protest, etc. It's not as big as in the 1960s and 1970s had been (before I was born), but still, it was definitely a pretty big element, and LGBTQ+ and social justice seem to be important topics that affect many people here in the West. Here, much of this is expressed -- or social change is effected -- through protest culture, outrage, etc. In China, everybody fully supports the government, don't they? I mean that what the Party does, has 100.00% approval rating at all times, there are no Facebook groups for discussing it, there is no activism protesting anything or driving for any kind of change, and everyone there just totally supports everything. (In Mainland China). So how does this effect their youth and millennials, when they're literally 100.00% on board with everything, and there's no protest culture or counterculture of any kind? - EDIT: little help from downvoters? What am I missing? (It's a really genuine question about a huge difference between East/West.) EDIT2: Thanks for the replies. I think we're all on the same page so I didn't edit my comment. We all are talking about the same facts. However, my specific question is how this effects millennial fashion, etc. (Being edgy, counterculture, etc.) In mainland China, is Millennial fashion missing these "edgy" or countercultural elements?
- k__ 7y agoMaybe your claim that "everybody fully supports the government" is seen as rude?
- gdoptimizer 7y agoThe article has already said it. It was not the millennials supported the government 100%. Many of them were just indifferent to politics.
- freeflight 7y ago> In China, everybody fully supports the government, don't they? I mean that what the Party does, has 100.00% approval rating at all times, there are no Facebook groups for discussing it, there is no activism protesting anything or driving for any kind of change, and everyone there just totally supports everything. (In Mainland China). I take issue with that description of China because any government that is in power usually is so because large numbers of its citizens supporting it. That's something absolutely normal, as it doesn't work any other way. But with China, it's somehow made out to be something bad when the Chinese are supportive of their country and government. Similarly: Facebook ain't the only platform for discussion and organizing, the notion that China doesn't have any such platforms, and thus no counterculture like that, is just silly.
- scilro 7y ago>Now she is thinking of giving up the citizenship she worked so hard to get, and moving back to an authoritarian China where guns and drugs are strictly forbidden – at least her son would be safe. To quote a friend, "all 'authoritarian' states (really, all states) distribute their 'authoritarianism' unevenly. that you aren't experiencing any right now doesn't mean it isn't being done, it just means you're not part of the demographic being targeted." The commonly understood definition of "authoritarian" is pretty insufficient, since it doesn't capture non-state actors exercising authority, control or violence over your life.
- pjc50 7y agoIndeed. This was highlighted in the overthrow of Iraq. It was undoubtedly an authoritarian state where dissenters and minorities were murdered. However, non-dissenters from the ethnic majority were largely free to go about their business. The destruction of the state made the place entirely unsafe, with an interruption of basic food, medical and energy supplies. The invasion happened in March 2003. Sixteen years later the country is still at war at the edges, as part of the larger Syrian civil war. Car bombs still happen in cities. China appears to have chosen safety over freedom. The outcome is horrendous for minorities (Uighur etc), but for the majority? (By comparison, the Chinese civil war's combat period lasted about nine years, with a wikipedia death toll of about nine million people. The war is still not formally concluded.)
- yourbandsucks 7y agoFree press checkpoint RE: Iraq. They shut the internet off there last week to try and suppress ongoing protests/unrest. It's been reported a little, but hardly wall to wall like the Hong Kong thing. Why? Nobody sent out orders to the Anglo press about what to report, yet we still have this very marked phenomenon where the reporting takes 'the side' of Anglo world power. It's worth thinking about for anyone who salutes the flag in between platitudes about freedom.
- volkl48 7y agoIs this a serious question? Because Iraq is a chaotic mess where we are generally impressed if it isn't literally exploding. It's not that shutting the internet off is acceptable, it's that compared to everything else that happens/has happened in Iraq, that's insignificant. We hold (supposedly) functional, developed places to a higher standard in what we expect from them, and it takes smaller acts of injustice or violence to be noteworthy.
- hos234 7y agoThey seem to be having a good time and some old man is uneasy about it. Nothing to see here. The thing about uneasy old men, is they are happy only if everyone shares their uneasiness or someone shows up and holds their hand and tells them everything will be all right. If neither happens they get more and more cranky.
- dgellow 7y agoI have no idea what you’re referring to. Have we read the same article? I haven’t seen the part where the author expresses that they are uneasy about millennials, the whole article is mostly descriptive.
- lonelappde 7y agoThere's no need to inject sexism. The article is about men and women.
- fat-chunk 7y agoThe author of the article is a woman born in the 80s
- mywittyname 7y ago...With the spirit of an old man at the Waffle House counter.
- dang 7y ago"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ohduran 7y agoI'm not Chinese, and this article seems too...broad? I guess you can say anything about Millenials from anywhere, with condescending tone, and get pageviews.
- dgellow 7y agoWhere do you see a condescending tone? I didn’t feel that way when reading the article.
- ohduran 7y agoJust an overall impression, in the idea that "Millenials are this", "Millenials are that". Most of the times when someone frames a group of people into common characteristics, it sounds condescending to me.
- lonelappde 7y agoIt's a term to refer to "the current crop of young adults". I so rarely see the anti-"Millennial" crowd complain about the term "Baby Boomer"; usually it's the opposite, in fact.
- jhbadger 7y agoBut that was a real cohort with an actual cause (soldiers returning home from WWII and starting families, leading to a large increase in births in the decade following 1945). Later generations called Generation X and Millennials are much more arbitrary because there isn't really a defined cause for their existence.
- pwinnski 7y agoIf the complaint is the name, as you seem to be suggesting, then pick whatever name you wish. If the complaint is that not everybody of a given age should be lumped together as one, then that's as true of any generation than any other. Either way, Millennials are not being singled out. Signed, a reluctant member of GenX.
- elliekelly 7y ago> They were offered free software that would enable them to dodge the Great Firewall of China – which blocks almost all major Western news sites and social media outlets – and browse the internet without restrictions. There was some surprise when it turned out that even elite students in China had little interest in finding out what Westerners were thinking. Only 53 per cent of the participants had activated the software (even after repeated reminders), and about 14 per cent of the ones who had activated it uninstalled it shortly afterwards. Active users were browsing content which wasn’t political. If you’re a University student randomly offered “free software” to bypass the firewall of course you’re going to be acutely aware that your activity is still being monitored. Probably monitored even closer than usual. I’m not sure their browsing habits really indicate their interests in that scenario.
- yorwba 7y ago> I’m not sure their browsing habits really indicate their interests in that scenario. You should read the actual study [1] then. E.g. "when news on the Panama Papers broke (the week of April 4th, 2016) and when President Trump called the President of Taiwan (the week of December 5th, 2016) — two of the highest news peaks during the experiment — Group-AE students increased their weekly browsing time on the New York Times by 157% and 180% compared to their average consumption, respectively. Overall, a 10% increase in the share of politically sensitive articles published corresponds to students spending 1.8 more minutes on the website during that week." [1] http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fall/1984bravenewworld_draft.pdf http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fal... The study (or rather, an article based on the study) was discussed on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20233268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20233268
- Jommi 7y agoThis is an even bigger joke if you know that residential areas of the 2 biggest Unis in Beijing have built-in VPNs allowing you to access google anyays :)
- baybal2 7y agoI know of few Western universities in China giving out VPN on campus from under the table, but nothing like that in BJ. Can you elaborate?
- wodenokoto 7y ago> not any old cotton tote, but one that’s trending on Instagram Really? On Instagram?
- AFascistWorld 7y agoInstagram is pretty much the reason 99% of the females even scale the GFW. Generally they hate talking about politics, and actively avoid the "smears" outside the GFW. That's why the recent pro-China posters are often deemed bots for being inactive or new, they don't like Twitter coz it's full of fake news and smears to them.
- yorwba 7y agoWhy not? Chinese people use Instagram, too. This post by a Chinese celebrity has more than 800k comments, most of them in Chinese: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1HRZMWHPvc/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B1HRZMWHPvc/
- mikorym 7y agoAs an American I would be somewhat alarmed by the claim that the Chinese millennials are not "rebellious" or anti-their-government. But as someone born on the African continent I would shrug this off as a mistranslation between Marx & Lenin, Inc. and both the East and Africa. When communism came to Africa the response was: "Oh, you mean tribalism." I suspect that the East may have had a similar mistranslation in the gears turning China way back in the early 20th century.
- yepthatsreality 7y agoSpoiler alert: generations are fiction used to quantify cultural behavior during a specific period of time. "millenials" is a very American idea now being applied to a completely different culture.
- Throw_Away_8563 7y ago> They were offered free software that would enable them to dodge the Great Firewall of China – which blocks almost all major Western news sites and social media outlets – and browse the internet without restrictions. There was some surprise when it turned out that even elite students in China had little interest in finding out what Westerners were thinking. Only 53 per cent of the participants had activated the software (even after repeated reminders), and about 14 per cent of the ones who had activated it uninstalled it shortly afterwards. Active users were browsing content which wasn’t political. People usually don't care very much about what foreigners think, particularly such a nationalistic people as the Chinese, who AFAIK often think that the West is using anti-Chinese propaganda. Not many Westerners would actively browse Chinese or Indian sites to see their perspective either. Edit: One might think that the fact that the content is censored might make people curious, but I don't think that is the case if the people support the censorship. In my country, Holocaust denial is illegal, but that motivates few people to read the arguments of Holocaust deniers. Admittedly, the Chinese censorship might be more effective than the German one, making people more curious.
- Circuits 7y agoThis article comes off as an anti-western propaganda piece. No mention of any of the serious problems China has or what Chinese Millennials think about them. Imho, the article seems to suggest that prior to Millennials substantial progress was being made on any and all relative fronts and now progress has become stagnant. However, I believe that in reality, all of the problems Millennials are facing were generated by previous generations. So is the author just frustrated that these Millennials aren't fixing all of his generations mistakes?
- _iyig 7y agoFor a more close-up perspective, I recommend “Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China.” The author (himself a Western millennial) interviews and visits with six different Chinese young people over a period of years, discussing their goals, aspirations, worries and responsibilities. https://www.amazon.com/Wish-Lanterns-Young-Lives-China/dp/1628727640 https://www.amazon.com/Wish-Lanterns-Young-Lives-China/dp/16...