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by maxglute 806 days ago
Tanping is just slacking. Tanping kids still work. But it's still the same phenonmenon as the developed world, PRC single kids who grew up with silver spoon and high expectations realizing that they're pretty mid, and can't out compete their "betters". So they slack and take life easier. It's basically the normal distribution in every western workplace. Workers with prospects still grind to work their way up the (involution) rat race . Western media portrays it as big deal, but it's not even western "antiwork" work level of subversive.

Emerging PRC analogues to NEETs/Hikikomori are "full time kids". TLDR is high savings rate and culture = kids live with parents and do bumfuck while looking for jobs they think are their level. Some will settle for employment beneath them, some will live off their parents dime if their parents can support it. Cause is PRC went from single digit to 60% tertiary rate in last 20 years, there's too much talent/competition last few years as graduating classes got larger and larger but not enough jobs uni kids want.
2 comments
dageshi 806 days ago
I think it's a bit more serious than that. Those self same "mid" kids would've had no problems meeting expectations if they'd been born 10 or 20 years ago because China was experiencing one of the most unprecedented growth periods in history.

If growth stalls but expectations of what "success" looks like in life remain the same then inevitably the more rational amongst them will look and see that just achieving a "normal" life seems incredibly difficult.

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maxglute 806 days ago
Those same mid kids would likely work a medicore blue collar job but be able to afford real estate after a few years of saving while the market was low. Some of them might be lucky and have first mover entreprenured their way to being million/billionaires despite not being very bright (like Ma). Same lament as kids in west when their parents worked mid jobs and could raise a family. Dual income young professional households who can't buy a house while their parents without degrees have multipe + land in cottage country. Now PRC kids dealing with same shit kids in west are, academic inflation + increase cost of living + easy speculative R/E wealth is gone. Meanwhile no one wants to do "hard" work because they spend too much time in school to do manual labour. They want top 10% income air conditioned office jobs befitting their degree.

I'm not saying it's not serious, it's also not particularly special to PRC. Like the few tanping kids I hear about IRL in PRC are like your typical western kids with comfortably wealthy boomer parents who can afford to fuck around because they got safety net/inheritance down the line. Everyone else grinding while joking about tanping, like antiwork folks in the west bitch about their conditions, but eat continue to eat shit all the same.

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red-iron-pine 806 days ago
the difference is that there isn't 1 billion people in the west -- US (330M) + Europe (500M) still isn't close. lots of space in the US to move to, also.

and the ability to be extremely vocal about it -- which could get you sent to jail or otherwise ruin your life via social credit scores.

point is, the kids in China have it notably rough.

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