Is the gentrified young urban Chinese a coming challenge?
Posté par ITgium le 30 juin 2018
Since I moved to China, I try to keep up with the times. Beyond the clichés, I aspire to understand the country. By the way everything is worth mentioning, among others topics, the political perspective. For years, I was convinced that the Regime would continue over decades. Dazzled by its incredible achievements, the people’s life improvement and remarkable infrastructures, I blocked my ears joyfully. Moreover, I welcomed happily the speeches laid out by the officials, mainly operational roadmaps plotting out the ways of the future as the “one belt one road initiative”.
One day I came across an article about the youth revolt that spread on May 1968 all over Western Europe. At that time, the old continent was experiencing an unprecedented wealth-creation and full employment. Everything was running smoothly until the moment the rope shattered unexpectedly. Waves of gentrified young urban surged on the streets overnight. Peaceful mood, hair braided with flowers, rock n’ roll tunes in their ears, they advocated for a change. They sensed the sunset of an era. The old world was dying anyway, they said.
No cogent rational reasons explained this uncharacteristic outpouring of emotion. Nobody foresaw those events. However, they were no shortage of clues, as it is today in China. Since a decade, young urban are fed by an unrestrained consumption that turns sometimes into narcissism and egocentrism. While their parents were driven by the desire to enjoy a better life, the new generation let themselves carried by the astonishing power of communication devices. While their parents remembered the years of deprivation, the current one is swamped by the lure of an unbridled hedonism.
Is it enough to give a meaning to their lives? What will they do when they become bored of an invasive material life?
As it was in Europe fifty years ago, there are slight signs of a coming challenge, like a tremble, a hunch based on evasive impressions or anecdotal conversations. On the surface, nothing to worry about! But street movements arise sometimes because of a big void, a feeling of emptiness, to put it mildly, enough to influence the course of human History.
François de la Chevalerie
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