China Digital Times

China news tagged with: youth (30)

• Global Brands Turn To China’s Young Amid Slump

  

  From AP:

  In her Vans cap, Quiksilver shirt and Adidas shorts, 19-year-old Terry Zhong is a walking checklist of sports brands as she sets out on a weekly shopping trip with a 500-yuan ($73) budget.

  Global economic gloom has barely dented her willingness to spend.

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with me,” Zhong said, striding through Beijing’s bustling Xidan commercial district carrying bags from H&M and Zara.

  Young Chinese shoppers like Zhong are still spending freely, and major brands ranging from Nike Inc. to Barbie doll maker Mattel Inc. are courting them eagerly to shore up revenue as demand elsewhere slumps.

  » Read more
  • August 22, 2009 11:44 PM

• China’s Youth Post-Tiananmen: Apathy A Fact Or Front?

  

  From CNN:

  They’re known as the “post 1980s” kids or the “Tiananmen-plus-20″ generation: 200 million-strong, Web-savvy, pop-culture-conscious and decidedly apolitical.

  As the world observes the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, pro-democracy advocates abroad lament how little Chinese youth today know or care about the student-led movement that ended with the deaths of hundreds when tanks rumbled through the capital’s streets and troops opened fire.

  But what is lost in the generalization is whether today’s political apathy is a fact or a front.

  “Politics is not a game that we want to play or we can play,” said “Holly,” a 21-year-old college student, who like the rest of the people quoted in this article, agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

  Read also “Is this an anonymous interview?” by Solarina Ho.

  » Read more
  • June 4, 2009 1:12 AM

• Chinese Youth ‘Face Suicide Risk’

  

  From BBC News:

  An association in China says that suicide is the leading cause of death among young people.

  The Chinese Association for Mental Health says young people aged between 15 and 34 are more likely to die at their own hand than by any other means.

  The suicide rate is reported to be higher in the countryside than cities, with more women taking their own lives.

  The report was published in advance of World Suicide Prevention Day, taking place on Wednesday.

  » Read more
  • September 10, 2008 5:54 PM

• China’s Young People Connect Online

  

  From San Francisco Chronicle:

  Alex Zhang opines on his blog about music and movies and, most recently, learning to drive on Beijing’s congested roads.

  The 25-year-old sends instant messages to friends on his computer and cell phone, hangs out at social-networking site Xiaonei and downloads American and Chinese movies and television shows from Web sites like Xunlei.

  “I would feel uncomfortable if the computer can’t connect to the Internet,” said Zhang, who earned a master’s degree in engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing this spring.

  Zhang is representative of China’s well-connected youth, for whom the Internet and cell phone have become critical communication tools.

  » Read more
  • August 4, 2008 5:23 AM

• Video: Branded New China

  

  Armani. Gucci. Louis Vuitton. China’s urban youth talk about spending nearly two months salary on a handbag – and the identity, culture and social status that come with the label – in this Mandarin Film documentary for Current TV:

  Says one Shenzhen resident:

  “My parents are from the countryside. They are much more conservative. We have a different way of thinking. … Especially when it comes to spending money. They just don’t get it.”

  Considering this label consciousness, it will be interesting to watch American Apparel’s China play, says Danwei:

  The announcement on their own web page says the following:

  In the next few months American Apparel will be opening its first stores in China with locations already slated in Beijing and in Shanghai.

  In a rare industry occurrence, we will be bringing Made in the USA clothing to China and we intend to pay employees there gross wages that exceed the US minimum.

  Aside from the fact that the company intends to sell U.S. made clothes and pay above market rates for labor, there is a further obstacle to their success: it is not clear whether Chinese consumers will pay much for clothes that have no obvious brand and therefore no obvious status marker.

  Earlier this month, Shaun Rein of the China Market Research Group noted in BusinessWeek that global companies are increasingly targeting China’s young consumers:

  In 2007 China posted 17% growth in retail spending.

  Much of this continued growth is fueled by Chinese under the age of 32. My firm…conducted in-depth interviews with 500 Chinese between the ages of 22 and 32 in 10 cities to gauge whether fears of a global slowdown would influence their shopping habits. The answer was a resounding no. A full 90% of interviewees said they expected to “spend considerably more” in 2008 than they did in 2007, and the vast majority was “very optimistic” about salary potential in the next two years, with the majority expecting salary increases of 10% to 25% in next year.

  As selling to Chinese consumers becomes more important to multinationals’ bottom lines, the key to winning in China is to understand the needs and motivations of Chinese youth. Many multinationals find their core target market in China is much younger than in other countries. Companies, therefore, need to rethink the products they introduce to China, the sales channels they use, and the marketing-communication strategies they employ. It is no longer acceptable to take what worked elsewhere and transfer it here. China is too important a market for such lazy localization.

  More from China Digital Times on China’s middle class and consumption:
  China’s Classes of Haves
  The New Rich in China: Why There Is No New Middle Class
  Cooler Living for China’s Youth?
  Chinese Students a Major Market Force

  » Read more
  • April 18, 2008 12:23 AM

• China’s Loyal Youth

  

  Matthew Forney, a former Beijing bureau chief for Time, writes on the New York Times:

  Many sympathetic Westerners view Chinese society along the lines of what they saw in the waning days of the Soviet Union: a repressive government backed by old hard-liners losing its grip to a new generation of well-educated, liberal-leaning sophisticates. As pleasant as this outlook may be, it’s naïve. Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet.

  …Barring major changes in China’s education system or economy, Westerners are not going to find allies among the vast majority of Chinese on key issues like Tibet, Darfur and the environment for some time. If the debate over Tibet turns this summer’s contests in Beijing into the Human Rights Games, as seems inevitable, Western ticket-holders expecting to find Chinese angry at their government will instead find Chinese angry at them.

  » Read more
  • April 13, 2008 12:07 AM

• Who Is That “Small Minority of People” Who Are Attacking and Burning Lhasa?

  

  Here are some relevant information about the Tibet protests. First, Xinhua’s account of the events in Lhasa:

  Xinhua, in Chinese, Saturday Morning 1:30 AM

  Responsible Person in TAR Says that A Very Small Minority of People are Attacking, Smashing, Shooting and Burning, answering queries from a Xinhua Journalist

  Xinhua March 14 Lhasa. In recent days, a very small minority of people have been attacking, smashing, shooting and burning, disturbing public order and harming the safety of the lives and property of the masses. These is sufficient evidence to say that this been plotted, organized and painstakingly planned by the Dalai clique. This has already aroused great anger and strong condemnation among all the nationalities of the TAR. The relevant departments in Tibet are according to law taking appropriate measures. We are entirely capable of preserving Tibet’s social stability and protecting the lives and property of all the nationalities of Tibet. The plots of a small minority is scheming to destroy the stability and harmony of Tibet is not winning the hearts of the people and so is doomed to failure.

  The following commentary about the demographics behind the Tibet protests is translated from a Chinese text:

  While Tibetans have very serious grievances including racism and broad spectrum oppression, there are also other factors including demography and employment.

  Tibet’s population is very young. The median age in a population is according to some scholars linked to phenomena such as violent crime which is committed disproportionately by people in their 20s. Now the median age in the U.S. is 36 years up from about 27 years in 1968. The U.S. 60’s youth culture culminated that year — which also the year the U.S. had the lowest median age over the past 70 years. See here.

  Tibet has a developing country population structure (might demographics be a factor in turbulent politics?) while China is reaching a “developed country” population structure.

  I did a little looking around and found data on Tibet’s (Tibetan Autonomous Region) median age and China’s median age in 2000. Tibet: 21 years (half the population was under 21 in 2000), China: 28.95 years. China’s population had a median age of 21 back in 1978, just five or so years after China’s birth rate started its sharp decline. Family planning rules are not applied to the TAR countryside, but do apply in cities, particularly for government workers and party members. Thus Tibet has a very different demographic profile than the rest of the PRC. Probably true of Xinjiang as well, where relaxed family planning rules apply in the countryside. China’s median population is projected to increase to 33.21 years in 2010, 35.44 years in 2020, 38.51 years in 2030, and 40.58 years in 2040. So the demographic contrast between the TAR and the PRC will continue to widen for many years to come.

  Think about unemployment. Many Chinese provinces let off some pressure by the large numbers of people who go off to other provinces to seek work. This is much harder for Tibetans, (and similarly for Uighurs, I think) because of the big language barrier they face in a Chinese speaking world and the alienness of Han culture to them. So rural unemployment in Tibet is a bigger problem (even allowing for serious poverty and lack of development) since the safety valve can’t work as well as it does in the provinces of the interior. Now discrimination in employment that Tibetans feel is sometimes due to ethnic Han racism against them, but probably is often because many Tibetans can’t speak Chinese as well as migrant competitors from the interior. (I saw the same problem in Xinjiang ten years ago), even so, it is felt as discrimination against them as Tibetans. Then there is discrimination for political reasons, with tour guides being the most famous example, since Tibetan tour guides might say politically incorrect things. Not to mention the herders who are settled in cities with nothing to do.

  More about Tibet’s developing country population structure is here (in Chinese).

  Here is a video clips from RussiaToday:

  » Read more
  • March 15, 2008 1:45 PM

• China Discovers the Permissive Society

  

  China’s youth are defying tradition with sexual promiscuity.  But is education addressing this newfound freedom?  And is age-old morality under seige?  The New York Times reports on this new phenomenon and its consequences:

  Every weekend, lusty college couples make a beeline past greasy spoon restaurants and bootleg video game shops for the dim hotel lobbies to book three-hour blocks of privacy. Students fill half the simple but tidy rooms at the Cheng Lin Ming Guang Hotel, a 10-minute walk from Beijing Normal University.

  China is in the midst of a sexual revolution, a byproduct of rising prosperity and looser government restrictions on private life. The relaxed attitudes about sex mark a historic turnaround from the days when love and sex were denounced as bourgeois decadence, and unisex Mao suits and drab austerity were the norm.   

  » Read more
  • March 4, 2008 1:20 AM

• Recent News about Chinese Students

  

  Two reports of violent crimes allegedly perpetrated by students in China have hit the news in recent days:

  First, a Chinese teenager kidnapped and murdered by classmates:

  David Stanway reported in Beijing that four teenagers were arrested for the murder of their classmate Zhao Shaoxu, the son of a local entrepreneur, whom they kidnapped in an attempt to extort 500,000 yuan (£35,000) in ransom money. Even though president Hu Jintao tightened improvements to the “quality” and “morality” of the new generations, the biggest crime in China has been on the youth, says the Guardian report. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • January 8, 2008 9:17 PM

• Employment Among the Youth Declines

  

  From Chinanews:

  The employment rate among Chinese youth is on the decline. Currently, China has thousands of young people who are not in education, employment or training, according to a report released by the Renmin University of China’s Population Development Studies Center, the China Youth Daily reported.

  The report shows that in China, employment rate among people above the age of 16 is 69.7%, down by 4.4 percentage points compared with related employment rate in 2000. On the whole, employment rate among the youth is on a declining trend. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • December 14, 2007 5:00 PM

• China Youth Crime ‘In Rapid rise’ – BBC

  

  From BBC News:

  Juvenile crime is increasing rapidly in China and becoming a serious problem, Chinese experts have warned.

  The number of young offenders had more than doubled in 10 years, officials told a Beijing seminar.

  The offenders were getting younger, forming larger gangs and committing a greater variety of crimes, one academic said.

  Social change, China’s one-child policy and the internet were all partly to blame for the rise, the experts said. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • December 5, 2007 6:58 AM

• Teachers baffled by “Post-90s” generation – Guan Xiaomeng

  

  From China Daily:

  When talking about his history teacher, Yang Yifei, a third-year senior high student put on an air of scorn. “He teaches only teaches what’s in the textbooks word for word,” Yang said.

  The student, who is the top student in history at a well-known secondary school in Beijing continued claiming the teacher was not knowledgeable enough because he refused to answer students’ questions about a historical drama on television and Kung fu novels.

  Yang’s opinions represent the generation born after the 1990s called “hou 90s”, who are brought up on “fast-food culture” and the Internet. The generation gap between teachers and students range from language to attitudes. [Full Text]

  - Photo: Students have a class with their cell phones confiscated and laid on the teacher’s desk.

  » Read more
  • April 24, 2007 4:04 PM

• Hard Hat Show – Bringing it all back home – Banyue

  

  From Danwei TV:

  Written and directed by Luke Mines, this episode of the Hard Hat Show looks at three Chinese 20 somethings who were born in Mainland China but went abroad at a young age. They have since returned and now live in Beijing where we interviewed them about how it feels to be back home. [Original Post]

  » Read more
  • April 24, 2007 3:53 PM

• Marriage After Graduation – Wise Decision or Rash Action? – Li Jingrong

  

  From China.org:

  The stereotypical life of a young urban Chinese person could be said to run like this: graduate from college, find a good job, get married and raise a family. However, more and more young people are straying from this path nowadays, selecting to marry immediately after graduation, the People’s Daily reported on March 29.

  …Following their graduation from a Shanghai university, Wang Ni and Liu Hao moved to Beijing and married at the end of last year. “However, newly-married life is not as always plain sailing,” admitted Wang.

  Wang Ni and Liu Hao both come from one-child families and, perhaps as a consequence, are not equipped with the range of skills one would expect in a married couple. Every morning, Liu Hao’s mother telephones them to wake them up in time for work and on weekends, she visits them to take care of their cooking, washing, cleaning and even pays their bills….[Full Text]

  » Read more
  • April 3, 2007 10:22 AM

• China Treats Internet ‘Addicts’ Sternly – Ariana Eunjung Cha

  

  From The Washington Post:

  Sun Jiting spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, “This is for your own good!”

  Sun’s offense: Internet addiction.

  Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls “a grave social problem” that threatens the nation.[Full Text]

  » Read more
  • February 22, 2007 11:08 AM

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