Reuters looks at the generation born in the 1980s, who are coming of age just as China confronts a series of challenges, from global protests around China’s hosting of the Olympics, to natural disasters including January’s snowstorm and the recent earthquake:
Wang’s belief that this year’s cascade of crises, especially the quake, has been an initiation rite for Chinese born after 1980 is widely shared. And it could leave a deep impression on a nation where the ruling Communist Party has warily faced its youth raised on global capitalism, Internet and text messaging.
“For us, it’s been a chance to show we’re not just kids who grew up pampered and useless,” said Wang, a slight 19-year-old, who took time off from a university course in English to work in a temporary tent hospital for quake refugees in Mianzhu, Sichuan.
Read also “The ABC’s of China’s post-1980s generation” from Reuters.
