Young, Tired, and Still Trying: China’s Next Generation Rethinks Success

RECIT - Faced with the slowdown in the economy, new generations are looking for more fulfilling jobs, but often conceal that they are deprived of work.

Young, Tired, and Still Trying: China’s Next Generation Rethinks Success

Writer Peter Hessler and anthropologist Xiang Biao on the changing lives of young Chinese, the meaning of hard work, and why parents should cut their kids some slack.

The youth is hardly patriotic, warns a leading Chinese intellectual. It is apolitical, indifferent and self-centered. For the rulers in Beijing this is a problem.

Jeunesse (Les Tourments), a river documentary about young workers in the Chinese textile industry, is released at the cinema this Wednesday, April 2nd. The opportunity to come back with its director Wang Bing about his work, his relationship to the future and the youth of his country.

Poor Job Security undermine Young S'poreans

SINGAPORE: A young Singaporean felt disillusioned when he realized that working hard, getting good grades, and doing internships didn’t automatically lead to success like he thought they would. In his post on the r/askSingapore subreddit, he wrote, “Growing up, we were promised a formula for success: work hard, get into a good (secondary school), a good JC (junior college), a good university, a strong Uni GPA (university grade point average), d…

The Myth of Meritocracy: How Exams Helped Build an Empire

Imperial China was a meritocracy. That’s the story we’ve long been told—and one that has shaped how generations have understood the Chinese state. For over a thousand years, aspiring officials sat for grueling, multi-level exams, with the top scorers earning posts in the imperial bureaucracy. In a world where birth usually determined one’s future, this system seemed radically modern: government by talent, not by bloodline.It had profound implica…