On Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 4:47:15 PM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 2:07:13 PM UTC-4, David P. wrote:
> > These Chinese Millennials Are ‘Chilling,’ and Beijing Isn’t Happy
> > By Elsie Chen, 7/3/21, New York Times
> >
> > Five years ago, Luo Huazhong discovered that he enjoyed
> > doing nothing. He quit his job as factory worker in China,
> > biked 1,300 miles from Sichuan Province to Tibet & decided
> > he could get by on odd jobs and $60/month from his savings.
> > He called his new lifestyle “lying flat.”
> >
> > “I have been chilling,” Luo, 31, wrote in a blog post in
> > April, describing his way of life. “I don’t feel like
> > there’s anything wrong.”
> >
> > He titled his post “Lying Flat Is Justice,” attaching a
> > photo of himself lying on his bed in a dark room with the
> > curtains drawn. Before long, the post was being celebrated
> > by Chinese millennials as an anti-consumerist manifesto.
> > “Lying flat” went viral & has since become a broader
> > statement about Chinese society.
> >
> > A generation ago, the route to success in China was to
> > work hard, get married & have kids. The country’s authori-
> > tarianism was seen as a fair trade-off as millions were
> > lifted out of poverty. But with employees working longer
> > hours & housing prices rising faster than incomes, many
> > young Chinese fear they will be the first generation not
> > to do better than their parents.
> >
> > They are now defying the country’s long-held prosperity
> > narrative by refusing to participate in it.
> >
> > Luo’s blog post was removed by censors, who saw it as an
> > affront to Beijing’s economic ambitions. Mentions of
> > “lying flat” — tangping, as it’s known in Mandarin — are
> > heavily restricted on the Chinese internet. An official
> > counternarrative has also emerged, encouraging young people
> > to work hard for the sake of the country’s future.
> >
> > “After working for so long, I just felt numb, like a machine,”
> > Luo said in an interview. “And so I resigned.”
> >
> > To lie flat means to forgo marriage, not have kids, stay
> > unemployed and eschew material wants such as a house or a
> > car. It is the opposite of what China’s leaders have asked
> > of their people. But that didn’t bother Leon Ding.
> >
> > Ding, 22, has been lying flat for almost 3 months & thinks
> > of the act as “silent resistance.” He dropped out of a
> > university in his final year in March because he didn’t like
> > the comp sci major his parents had chosen for him.
> >
> > After leaving school, Ding used his savings to rent a room
> > in Shenzhen. He tried to find a regular office job but
> > realized that most positions required him to work long hours.
> > “I want a stable job that allows me to have my own time to
> > relax, but where can I find it?” he said.
> >
> > Ding thinks young people should work hard for what they
> > love, but not “996” — 9 am-9 pm, 6 days/week — as many
> > employers in China expect. Frustrated with the job search,
> > he decided that “lying flat” was the way to go.
> >
> > “To be honest, it feels really comfortable,” he said.
> > “I don’t want to be too hard on myself.”
> >
> > To make ends meet, Ding gets paid to play video games &
> > has minimized his spending by doing things like cutting
> > out his favorite bubble tea. Asked about his long-term
> > plans, he said: “Come back and ask me in six months.
> > I only plan for six months.”
> >
> > While plenty of Chinese millennials continue to adhere to
> > the country’s traditional work ethic, “lying flat” reflects
> > both a nascent counterculture movement and a backlash
> > against China’s hypercompetitive work environment.
> >
> > Xiang Biao, a prof of social anthropology at Oxford U. who
> > focuses on Chinese society, called tangping culture a
> > turning point for China. “Young people feel a kind of
> > pressure that they can't explain and they feel that promises
> > were broken,” he said. “People realize that material better-
> > ment is no longer the single most important source of
> > meaning in life.”
> >
> > The ruling Communist Party, wary of any form of social
> > instability, has targeted the “lying flat” idea as a threat
> > to stability in China. Censors have deleted a tangping group
> > with more than 9,000 members on Douban, a popular internet
> > forum. The authorities also barred posts on another
> > tangping forum with more than 200,000 members.
> >
> > In May, China’s internet regulator ordered online platforms
> > to “strictly restrict” new posts on tangping, acc. to a
> > directive obtained by The NY Times. A 2nd directive required
> > e-commerce platforms to stop selling clothes, phone cases
> > and other merchandise branded with “tangping.”
> >
> > The state news media has called tangping “shameful,” and a
> > newspaper warned against “lying flat before getting rich.”
> > Yu Minhong, a prominent billionaire, urged young people not
> > to lie down, because “otherwise who can we rely on for the
> > future of our country?”
> >
> > Luo decided to write about tangping after he saw people
> > heatedly discussing China’s latest census results in April
> > & calls for the country to address a looming demographic
> > crisis by having more babies.
> >
> > He described his original “lying flat” blog post as “an
> > inner monologue from a man living at the bottom of the society.”
> >
> > “Those people who say lying down is shameful are shameless,”
> > he said. “I have the right to choose a slow lifestyle.
> > I didn’t do anything destructive to society. Do we have to
> > work 12 hrs/day in a sweatshop, and is that justice?”
> >
> > Luo was born in rural Jiande County, in east Zhejiang
> > Province. In 2007, he dropped out of a vocational high
> > school and started working in factories. One job involved
> > working 12-hr shifts at a tire factory. By the end of the day,
> > he had blisters all over his feet, he said.
> >
> > In 2014, he found a job as a product inspector in a factory
> > but didn’t like it. He quit after two years and took on the
> > occasional acting gig to make ends meet. (In 2018, he played
> > a corpse in a Chinese movie by, of course, lying flat.)
> >
> > Today, he lives with his family and spends his days reading
> > philosophy & news & working out. He said it was an ideal
> > lifestyle, allowing him to live minimally & “think & express
> > freely.” He encourages his followers, who call him
> > “the Master of Lying Down,” to do the same.
> >
> > After hearing about Luo’s tangping post on a Chinese
> > podcast, Zhang Xinmin, 36, was inspired to write a song
> > about it.
> >
> > Zhang, a musician based in Wuhan, had quit his job in adver-
> > tising five years ago to pursue his music, and the idea of
> > lying flat resonated with him. He called his song
> > “Tangping Is the Right Way.”
> >
> > Zhang uploaded the song to his social media platforms on
> > June 3, and within a day censors had deleted it from 3
> > websites. He was furious.
> >
> > “Nowadays, only running forward is allowed, but not lying
> > down,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me that they
> > deleted this song.”
> >
> > He eventually uploaded the song as a video on YouTube,
> > which is blocked in China. The video shows him lying down
> > on his sofa, casually strumming his guitar as he sings in
> > a breezy voice:
> >
> > Lying down is really good
> > Lying down is wonderful
> > Lying down is the right thing to do
> > Lie down so you won’t fall anymore
> > Lying down means never falling down.
> >
> > https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers-tangping.html
> Funny.
>
> One can easily writes article with title like:
> These X [name of a country] millennials have constipation and Y [name of a capital] isn't happy.
> And with statements like "They are now defying the country’s long-held prosperity [or whatever]
> narrative by refusing to participate in it. "
> If you want to discuss this kind of article, please lead the way.

Please provide another example that is as meaningful, and specify X and Y(X).