Posted on 07/03/2021 6:33:50 AM PDT by Theoria
Young people in China have set off a nascent counterculture movement that involves lying down and doing as little as possible.
Five years ago, Luo Huazhong discovered that he enjoyed doing nothing. He quit his job as a factory worker in China, biked 1,300 miles from Sichuan Province to Tibet and decided he could get by on odd jobs and $60 a month from his savings. He called his new lifestyle “lying flat.”
“I have been chilling,” Mr. Luo, 31, wrote in a blog post in April, describing his way of life. “I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong.”
He titled his post “Lying Flat Is Justice,” attaching a photo of himself lying on his bed in a dark room with the curtains drawn. Before long, the post was being celebrated by Chinese millennials as an anti-consumerist manifesto. “Lying flat” went viral and has since become a broader statement about Chinese society.
A generation ago, the route to success in China was to work hard, get married and have children. The country’s authoritarianism was seen as a fair trade-off as millions were lifted out of poverty. But with employees working longer hours and housing prices rising faster than incomes, many young Chinese fear they will be the first generation not to do better than their parents.
They are now defying the country’s long-held prosperity narrative by refusing to participate in it.
Mr. Luo’s blog post was removed by censors, who saw it as affront to Beijing’s economic ambitions. Mentions of “lying flat” — tangping, as it’s known in Mandarin — are heavily restricted on the Chinese internet. An official counternarrative has also emerged, encouraging young people to work hard for the sake of the country’s future.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The same thing happened in the Soviet Union and East Bloc. People just filled their quotas and then bought Levi’s jeans on the black market and watched episodes of Dallas and Dynasty broadcast from TV stations in West Germany.
“A generation ago, the route to success in China was to work hard, get married and have children.”
The Horror.
They’ve been watching American TV.
I doubt the Chinese government will give them a fat check for not working and “lying flat.”
I wonder what his “social quotient” score is currently.
Excellent video by a South African expat who lived and traveled for more than a decade in China.
Lying flat - China’s Silent Revolution
277,805 views, June 26, 2021
serpentza
835K subscribers
The Chinese government is Terrified of this silent Apathetic Revolution!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWl7njLlXLU&t=12s&ab_channel=serpentza
LMAO! Even Chinese millennials are a un-motivated, lazy, bunch of half wits living in mommys basement. Can’t make this stuff up.
Mr. Luo’s blog post was removed by censors, who saw it as affront to Beijing’s economic ambitions. Mentions of “lying flat” — tangping, as it’s known in Mandarin — are heavily restricted on the Chinese internet. An official counternarrative has also emerged, encouraging young people to work hard for the sake of the country’s future.
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Daoist philosophy has a concept of non-action called wu wei. The idea of not forcing something to achieve your goals. We might call it passive-resistance.
“From the sage’s emptiness, stillness arises; From stillness, action. From action, attainment.”
https://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates-the-need-for-lifehacks/
Yeah, was gonna add a not the bee or onion byline.
Sounds like our welfare and unemployment system.
Better be careful, the Chinese government might harvest their organs.
Was going to post this myself. JUST watched it last night. I love Winston’s videos. (And his with partner C-Milk).
And this got them more and more of the authoritiarian government. Why would you want to contribute to that increase?
The CCP will probably just knock off enough of them till they get the message and toe the line.
Collectivism relies on steadfast enforcement by a large population of believers. The USSR fell, in part, due to growing skepticism and indifference among their population.
The laziness of the young may be what saves more countries from collectivist regimes.
Unfortunately, it may also be what enables the emergence of a global totalitarian state.
Yes, they are both terrific recent eye-witnesses to life in CCP China.
You do know that ‘apathy’ is one common symptom among men if there are no women to associate with and no possibility of women to associate with, right?
China’s One Child policy backfired badly. Something like a fifth of men born since 1979 will statistically never be able to find a wife because the girl children got aborted in favor of boys. The dating situation is horrifically dire as a result, too. What’s worse - they know it.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/chinas-one-child-policy-effects-on-the-sex-ratio-and-crime
It may look the same as what you propose, but it’s far, far, far worse.
There are true workaholics; it doesn't sound like this young man is one of them. I wonder how he will evaluate his life after 20 years or so. We all make our choices and deal with the consequences...
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