Carol Leung will turn 30 this month. It has been a year since she relocated from a complicated family situation in Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland in the quest for a job, her own apartment and new friends. But her hopes for a fresh start in a buzzing, e
Carol Leung will turn 30 this month. It has been a year since she relocated from a complicated family situation in Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland in the quest for a job, her own apartment and new friends. But her hopes for a fresh start in a buzzing, exciting new city were crushed by reality.
Many young Chinese seem to walk the path of life by themselves. Photo: Li Hao/GT globaltimes
To pay for an apartment and the high living expenses, she has to work several part-time jobs. Besides her full-time employment as a customer service agent for a big company in Shanghai, she also works as an English and Cantonese teacher, does translation work and online retail. This busy schedule leaves her almost no spare time to build meaningful social relationships, let alone find a boyfriend. Instead, she misses her best friends from primary school and her two cats back home.
“I am lonely, and it seems I cannot assimilate into this city,” Leung said. She calls herself a modern Cinderella because she has to work so hard to sustain her life.
The female Hongkonger may be lonely, but she is not alone in this feeling. As many young Chinese move to first-tier cities for work, the pressure of life intensifies and overall happiness declines.
Photo: Li Hao/GT globaltimes
According to Hong Kong Polytechnic University research about life satisfaction in urbanizing China in 2015, Chinese living in smaller cities have an overall higher life satisfaction than those living in megacities. Life in smaller cities may be less stressful. In addition, the social support network may be more intact in the place they grew up in.
Many affective, non-instrumental social relationships are formed at an early stage in life. At the core of the network, there are the family relatives, to which Chinese have the strongest ties. Then, a big part of the friendships they keep for the rest of their lives are made in school, a 2011 research by different scholars lead by Liu Ye from the Chinese University of Hong Kong about the social networks of new-generation migrants has shown.
Carol Leung, 30, a Hongkonger in Shanghai Photo: Courtesy of Carol Leung /globaltimes
When Chinese relocate to a first-tier city, they leave behind an important part of their social capital and have to “actively construct non-territorial secondary relationship,” Liu wrote.
Internet addiction
Even local Chinese can feel isolated from their environment. Hong Jun (pseudonym), 29, returned to Beijing after having lived in smaller cities in northern China and Europe for the past 10 years. Now, his former classmates have their own families and social circles. Hong has a hard time integrating back into their lives.
“I may dine with my high school friends every four months or so,” Hong said.
Even though his social encounters are very limited, he does not feel lonely thanks to his job. Hong works for a medium-sized IT company.
The Internet and busy work schedules make it easier for China’s younger generation to withdraw from society. Photo: Li Hao/GT globaltimes
“During weekdays, I see my colleagues every day. Weekends actually pass by very quickly. Most of the time, nobody asks me to go out, so I sleep in, play a few hours of video games and watch movies. And soon, it’s Monday again.”
People like Hong are called zhainan in Chinese – nerds or geeks. Per definition, a zhainan prefers virtual worlds, games and Japanese manga to real life experiences. Also, the zhainan may have more Internet friends than physical social relationships.
Photo:baidu
Internet addiction often pops up as an explanation as to why China’s urban young professionals increasingly isolate themselves.
“Loneliness plays an important ‘push’ factor in attracting young people in China, especially an only child, to the Internet,” sociologist Trent Bax wrote in his book Youth and Internet Addiction in China.
Turning to the Web for social contacts early in life may prevent an only child from acquiring important social skills they need as adults.
Photo:baidu
Duan Xinxing, a psychology professor at China University of Mining and Technology whose work focuses on youth development, refers to sociology when she calls loneliness a disease of modern life.
The development of technology has led to a low degree of interdependence between people and decreased social interaction, according to Duan.
She would classify Hong as a social introvert, who might seem lonely to outsiders due to his lack of social interaction outside of work, but actually gets along well with his loneliness without feeling bad or isolated.
Photo:baidu
Even though Hong works in IT and engages in popular video games, he does not prefer virtuality to reality. “I am not sure if I would call myself a zhainan,” Hong said, “All in all, I like having fun with friends. But I don’t like to suggest an outing first, and I’m not good at making new friends.”
A combination of him having been away from Beijing for a long time, a busy work schedule and being lazy on the weekend leads to his lack of social life, Hong concluded. As many belonging to the generation born in the late 1980s and 1990s, he works overtime to keep up with the high workload.
In addition, he sometimes prefers staying at the office instead of returning to his empty apartment.
Photo:baidu
Working like machines
Hong shares a similar lifestyle with countless peers in Beijing.
According to a survey conducted by a research center under China Youth Daily in January, 86.5 percent of 2,000 interviewees were worried that their overpacked work schedules might undermine their physical health. On the topic of overtime, 27.6 percent of all interviewees said they usually work overtime and 60.7 percent said they sometimes work overtime.
In July 2017, the article Beijing has 20 million people pretending to live here by Chinese blogger Zhang Wumao had its finger on the pulse of the times. Reflecting critically on urban life in Beijing, Zhang argued that Beijing lacked human warmth.
Photo:baidu
He wrote, “In Beijing, there’s a mutual understanding when exchanging name cards; if we call each other a couple of times within a year, we’ll consider it a good friendship. If people are willing to come from the east of the city to the west to have a meal together, then we’ll be friends for life. The only people we meet every day and have meals with are our co-workers.”
The fact that the blog post went viral on Chinese social media’s WeChat and Weibo and sparked a heated online debate shows that many people resonated with the content.
Being busy around the clock might indeed be another major reason why friendship is becoming a luxury among Chinese urban youths, who are either working like machines or job hopping, Whatsonweibo.com reported.
Photo:baidu
Leung, too, says that the main reason behind her loneliness is the fact that she even works on her days off.
“This generation of young people, especially those who have entered major cities from small or medium-sized cities or rural areas, is unprecedented in pressure,” Duan said, adding that for newcomers to the city such as Leung, it takes time to build a new chain of social interaction.
The pressures referred to are increased job opportunities, intensified employment competition and the difficult housing market. At the same time, these young people are about to explore and establish self-identity, develop their career, look for a romantic partner and form their own personal values.
Photo:baidu
“Some individuals will make an effort to integrate into society, and some will choose to withdraw into their own personal security island,” Duan said, adding that the latter was facilitated by the Internet era.
However, as social circumstances may complicate the process of making friends for the younger generation, they can take an active part in changing the status quo.
Duan has some concrete advice for people who want to put an end to their loneliness.
“Leave your comfort zone in spite of initial social anxiety and fear,” she said, adding that only through active focus on integration will young Chinese get to experience the culture of the new city directly.
Photo: Li Hao/GT globaltimes
Deep connectedness
“Put down your phone and leave your room,” Duan said, encouraging youths to join sports associations or other social activities outside work where they can make friends through common interests.
As a consequence, “urban autism” will be eased, she said. Leung has tried it all. She lived in a shared flat before but moved out because she could not bear her roommate’s messy lifestyle. She also joined social activities but was not interested in the superficial relationships that resulted from these brief interactions, as she is convinced that people meet by fate.
GIF: baidu
“It’s easy to have idle chat with the acquaintances I meet during social activities; I call these types of friendships ‘hi-bye’ friends,” she said. But Leung is looking for a deeper interpersonal connection.
Two reasons preventing her from finding such a friendship are trust and compassion.
Leung believes that she cannot trust becoming friends with her coworkers because they might use every occasion to spread rumors and gossip about her. Trust is essential to Leung and the reason she believes that her students are her only true friends now. “They trust me.”
Photo: Li Hao/GT /globaltimes
Nonetheless, whenever she would share a personal problem or emotional difficulty with a new friend, she was disappointed by the lack of compassion in their responses.
“They only have pity for me but nobody would give me valuable advice on my situation,” she said, adding that her expectation for a friendship is to share not only the happy but also the sad moments. For the time being, she said she is doing her “own thing,” while not actively looking for friendship, as she is now seeking somebody to fall in love with.
“Sometimes my mom comforts me by saying ‘give up and come back to Hong Kong’ when I am in despair, but I don’t want to because I struggled very hard in Shanghai and after all, Cinderella had a happy ending too.”
Source: globaltimes
