China’s young and restless

Today, Explained

Vox

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

China’s ambitious youth planned to cash in on their country’s meteoric rise on the world stage. Instead, many of these 20-somethings are disillusioned and “lying flat.” Economist Nancy Qian explains why. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Cristian Ayala and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sam Sanders. If you liked this episode, check out Sam’s pop culture podcast Into It from Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network: https://bit.ly/intoit-tex Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Sam Sanders.
0:02.2	I usually host the pop culture podcast into it.
0:06.0	But today, I'm guest hosting today explained this episode, The Youth in China.
0:14.2	The kinda inner weird spot right now.
0:16.4	For decades, it seemed China was on this path of endless growth.
0:21.0	And so, just a few years ago, the youth of China thought they'd have it pretty good.
0:27.8	That's not really happening right now in China.
0:30.4	The youth unemployment rate is currently around 20%.
0:34.6	And lots of young people there are rejecting China's extreme hustle culture.
0:39.2	If you feel just done with life and have zero motivation to work hard anymore.
0:43.9	There's even a term for this.
0:45.4	That is called tongue, puung, literally, to lie down flat.
0:50.9	It refers to someone who can no longer be bothered to study, get to job,
0:56.3	date, get married.
0:57.8	This episode are The Youth in China, okay.
1:00.9	Or really, do anything.
1:04.7	This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
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	...

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