Young people in China are becoming more rebellious, questioning their nation’s traditional expectations of career and family
This is becoming a real perennial story, from what I gather the lay flat movement isn’t really very significant it’s probably less influential in China than incels are here, or a smaller niche that’s harder to think of - maybe like the nofap community or something. Big in some weird online spaces but pretty much unheard of out of it.
It’s an interesting one, kinda like Ken Keasy but without the acid.
Thanks for making me google Ken Keasy lol. I liked Cuckoos nest. I had no idea the author was an Army psychedlic test subject and worked in a psyciactric ward
Could you clarify how it’s like Ken Keasy?
PS -why you getting downvoted so hard? Due to lack of references or something?
I was thinking of Leary’s tune in, drop out kinda thing and Keasy was a big part of that movement.
And the downvoting is probably because they want to belive this is a big thing in China because it would go towards the view they want to be true, but the reality is cccp is hugely popular and the obsessive work ethic is still a driving force.
My question is why do you keep connecting it to sex
Sigma grind set or virgin for life, no in between
Afaik those are usually the same thing lmao
Indeed. In the elevated male fandom, the Sigma is the one who abandons all thoughts of women to focus on the grind and his version of success. The Chad is the one who gets the girls
I’m guessing because it’s a big carrot with equally dismal prospects and even when it’s achieved it’s not really so glamorous as advertised.
I’m not connecting it to sex I’m using them as examples of groups that if this was a Chinese forum we might be reading about and thinking they’re significant but were we to then ask a random American most wouldn’t have even heard of them and those that have would almost universally tell you are meaningless and not taken seriously.
When using one thing as an example of a certain facet of something it’s generally understood that the other aspects aren’t important - the sun is round like a cricket ball doesn’t imply it’s the same size or that it’s used for sport.
lol what the fuck is this “article”? A picture book ffs
You’ve never encountered photojournalism?! I know they are cutting budgets for photographers but that seems sad to me.
A new media for the new generation. In an era of ever-growing flow of information, it’s only natural pieces are more and more condensed and visual. That’s how we got here.
It reads like it’s a book for middle school students.
I disagree, I feel like this is an attempt to inject emotion and empathy into a topic that usually garners hostility. Think of the people usually reading The Wallstreet Journal: it’s not anyone young you imagine, perhaps someone with terms like “commies” still in lingo from the 70s and 80s?
I read this as an attempt to humanize a group that their target audience would usually alienate. The photos help with generating those emotions.
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. “摆烂”, together as a word, means “displaying a broken (bad) attitude, no matter the outside influence”. However, “烂” also means rot, which is probably where the translation “let it rot” came from.
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.
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?
Not exactly, 摆烂 is more mischievous noncompliance (like we typically think of a lazy cat), than confrontational sabotage.
But “throw it all away” certainly conveys the message well enough. It is quite common to have word in one language that dont have a exact match in another language. Even in European languages, let along between Chinese and English, which are widely different.
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.
Is there a Lemmy community for that?
I would love to have one, but I have yet to find an alternative.
Could you create one?
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.
I also read that as “quiet quitting”. Would you try to translate that from English to Chinese could cause all kinds of linguistic issues.
Pretty sure this is happening all over, not just in China.
Its just a generic filler article that gets posted about young people every year or two.
“Quiet Quitting” was the thing in 2022.
“Great Resignation” was the thing in 2021
You can find articles about this in 2019, 2016, omfg all over the place in the wake of 2008, “Jobless Recovery” from 2004 to 2006, in the 90s it was “Slackers” and in the 80s it was “Punks” and in the 70s and 60s it was “Hippies” and then back to Beatniks and Anarchists and of course, the old crowd favorite, Pinko Commies.
This is just a more recent mash up of the “China Bad” and “Nobody Wants To Work Anymore” meme
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Can say I’ve definitely “stopped striving”, don’t know if it’s from Long Covid, living paycheck to paycheck cause my pay gets min/maxed for the business, personal infighting thanks to Fox News and Republican bullshit tearing apart and killing families over vaccinations, or maybe it’s just the weather 🤷♂️ lol fuck
Probably it has happened all over the history as well, not just right now. Wanting not to take the torch from the previous generation is a pretty normal thing to do for people in their 20s.
I mean you’d be pretty reluctant to grab a torch too if it was one that has been held on desperately by a generation 3 above yours that didn’t even want to hand it away but are literally decaying around as they grasp tightly onto it and the torch requires feeding babies to it even though they don’t burn just so you have an excuse to dump a bunch of oil on to help reduce them to ash a bit further.
I think being handed a torch to carry would be fine. This is not a passing of a torch but a wildfire that people are busy dancing around. And I’m definitely to shy to join the “let it burn” party.
One of the behavioralist psychologists, I think it was Pavlov, ran an experiment on dogs where he shocked them for both bad behavior good.
Eventually, the shocks had no effect.
It was Martin Seligman who did dog shock experiments and developed the theory of learned helplessness in 1967. While Seligman demonstrated that learned helplessness did occur, we still don’t know why learned helplessness occurs (especially in humans).
Pavlov was much earlier (1897) and formed the theory of classical conditioning where a primary stimulus (food) was paired with a neutral stimulus (a bell) under the right conditions until the neutral stimulus would evoke a similar automatic response as the primary stimulus (e.g. drooling).
What you are describing also sounds a little like operant conditioning, where a learned behaviour is reinforced or punished with the application or removal of a stimulus. Or in this case, where the link between a behaviour and a stimulus is eroded to the point where the learned link goes extinct, and the subject becomes desensitized to the repeated stimulus.
Wait so you’re telling me abusing dogs results in a negative outcome?
Shit who would have thought!
Leaned hopelessness. Can’t escape the effect regardless of your efforts so eventually you stop trying
Damn I feel that
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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?
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”)
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
I think a lot of people got rated by a username?
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let it all rot
Ahh yes. Lemmy’s favorite. Another “China bad” article. This is the same shit as “no one wants to work anymore”. Non news, ignore this shit.
This is not a “China bad” article. You might want to read it, for a change.
I don’t need to read shit from wall street journal
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”
Edit: Looks like I pissed off some tankies, too bad fuckers, China is an evil country with black souled sons of bitches at the helm, and that’s as an American with even more disgusting darker souled miserable sons of bitches at the helms of our branches of government. Get real and get over it. Xi is a Winnie the Pooh looking CUNT that can go fuck himself!!!
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 wuyi (乌衣), Quanmei, 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.”
More like:
This square doesn’t have any corners, but still a square because it told me. Also don’t trust that square, it lies about everything
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 globe as a pillar against oppression and censorship. We should all remember this brave young lady.
News with videos (google translate): https://chinadigitaltimes-net.translate.goog/chinese/690159.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Wikipedia article on A4 revolution also mentioned her:
student stood on the steps of the Communication University of China, Nanjing, holding a blank sheet of paper, until it was snatched from her.
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?
Civil war, if our current trajectory is any indication.
I mean, that was almost a national sport over there, before the CPC.
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 of China as 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
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.
Without draconian censorship you can’t really replicate the experience of Chinese social media. I mean, I’m sure I’d be able to say things like sprinkling pepper 撒胡椒面 or facilitating commerce while loosening my clothing 通商宽衣.
Just doesn’t feel the same.
Fascism of course, just like we are heading towards.
To be clear, I violently oppose fascism, just that it seems to be to historical outcome of socially disconnected youth about the time they hit adulthood. Those disaffected youth become the audience that charismatic dictator-wannabes can manipulate.
China MAY be able to avoid this as their social controls are far more strict but with the internet and how tech savvy the disaffected Chinese youth are, this isn’t a guarantee.
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.
I’m pretty sure we’re watching society slowly collapse.
Great phrase, much more impact than quiet quit. I have plenty of sympathy for them, though that dipped substantially when one of the people they profiled became a “certified life coach” oh my god.
Quiet quit was always the establishment’s phrase anyway.
They made it up to spread a manufactured panic about people rationally refusing to do more than their contracts say for no more than their contract pay.
This is not how I want to read an article.
I checked the comments before opening the article and wasn’t sure what to expect based on yours.
Holy hell, we really are catering to the lowest common denominator here. It’s not that I think we shouldn’t, we absolutely should, but our society really should be working harder to keep lowest from being so damn low.
As much as I agree, I’ve seen plenty of articles that are so damn long it makes me wonder if they actually expect people to read it. Who has time to read an entire 30 min article where half is about a specific person’s personal story that’s only meant to back up the main points. Just tell me the main point and back it with data (bonus points if you kink every source you reference, imo).
Mmm, yes, show us your kink sources.
That’s why I think more detailed articles should be written like scientific journal articles. One to three paragraphs that convey the gist of the article and the remaining pages dedicated to analysis and explanation.
Not only would this be more work than a normal article, though, it’d reduce ad revenue because most people would read the abstract and leave.
And reader view doesn’t pick it up… gross
Well if you jump to the last picture there’s a link to open the full article, then you can… stare at the paywall…
Over half of Americans read at below a 6th grade reading level. So it makes sense that they want to bring back picture books.
They’re called graphic novels…
Kidding
Is this still true? Damn shame if so
Humorously, maybe the writer wants to let it rot
The Tiktok Manga Slideshow format has finally migrated to major news sites I see.
God I hate tech this decade.
It’s just buzzfeed articles returning from the grave. They’d split a few paragraphs over 20 pages somehow
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.
Might be the worst experience I’ve had. We don’t want books. We got rid of books
It’s like a picture book!
I think it makes it harder for us to scrape their site and copy and paste it here.
