The ‘80s generation: They have arrived
By Dai Zhiyong [戴志勇] ［原文在这里］
 
Perhaps it’s that they appeared for the first time this year in the Central Committee's Document No. 1 as the new generation of migrant workers.  Or perhaps it’s the appearance of Internet Addiction War, a popular online film that gave them the name of The Five Million World of Warcraft Players.  It’s a movie that can be compared with Avatar and Confucius as a real life depiction with zero cost, something they created.  This is the ‘80s generation and in 2010, they are turning 30-years-old.  

I trust you’ve already seen the difference: the have been named “the next generation of migrant workers” but “World of Warcraft players” is what they call themselves.  From passive to active, this is a true adult rite of passage.  The screaming voices in the movie  saying “we are World of Warcraft players” will be this generation’s precise interpretation of their effort to search for a sense of being.  They are not begging for their demands to be realized but rather are fighting for them through the satirization of and rebellion against those who abuse their power.  And they are expressing the values of free play and fair competition to mainstream society. 

30 years of rest and recuperation.  30 years of uncivilized growth.  Finally they are here.    They used a surprisingly creative and incisively critical spirit to leap on the stage of modern China.  This group has hundreds of millions, which means that Han Han [韩寒, best selling author born in 1982] is not lonely at all.  They are engaged on the Internet or the scene of any hot topic, striving to restore the truth, searching for righteousness.  They have begun to speak to reality with a loud voice, one that is rational, responsible and full of vigor.  This generation is bound to infuse new lifeblood into the China of their predecessors.  

They are naturally not a completely unified group.  They have different types of communities within, such as the heirs of the rich and heirs of the poor, as well as the heirs of officials who ride the coattails of relatives and naturally go into government work.  There are also university graduates that find nine-to-five jobs through industrial and educational structures that do not match society.  They have been called middle class or an ant farm in humble abodes [蜗居蚁族].  

They are us, our little brothers and sisters, neighbors, coworkers and interns.  Even though this generation has already laid stake to a different occupation and is crammed into different strata, they have grown up together in the revolutionary age that says goodbye to Utopia and yet still have similar strength of character and values.  

This generation will no longer be pained by anti-rightist campaigns, the great three year famine, the Cultural Revolution or being sent down to the countryside, nor the relational tragedies of mutual suspicion among spouses or ruptures between father and son.  Most of them are unfamiliar with “scar literature” [of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s] but are like fish in water when it comes to opening and reform.  This is because in the already transformed China, their humanity has been distorted very little and their ideals are not lost in the clouds.  This is because in the already transformed China, they have a much lower tolerance threshold for injustices in the process of reform compared to their parents’ tolerance of reality, who went through turmoil.  They have almost none of the apathy of resignation.  

Internet Addiction War, which has gotten several million hits in the past two short weeks, satirizes incidents such trans-provincial manhunts and law enforcement “fishing” for criminals [钓鱼执法], faking pictures of tigers in the wild [正龙拍虎], donating books to the students of Wenchuan instead of promised cash [秋雨捐书], and police covering up the details of a fatal car crash with obvious lies [70码].  What they are rebelling against is the disguising of inappropriate interests and powers in the spiritual world and even inappropriate physical discipline becoming mainstream.

In a word they need to live out a capitalized self.  They need to write out the character for “person” in large script.  Their respect for humanity, love of freedom and desire for truth and a sense of being are driving them from confusion to clarity.  It points them to these incidents that happen one after another, to free thought, and to rigorous debate, and slowly it provides an understanding of the numerous phenomenon behind the realities of politics and society.  Since they are young, they have embraced a great hope for a better tomorrow, thus they are working hard towards the future.  The blessings of this generation lie in the country’s doors being opened and each kind of wall around them gradually being torn down, and in the unstoppable age of the Internet, any dream is possible.  

This generation of only-children is far from the pampered “beat generation.”  In fact, even though American youth subverted mainstream values in the middle of the last century, it only [resulted in] the coexistence of a way of suspicion and certainty, the coexistence of a way of recklessness and convention.  Their arrival was not a disaster for America.  On the contrary in their own way they achieved America.  

If you throw off your burden, you can start the machine.  The achievement of a new China will inevitably be the growth of this generation after reform and opening.  There is no fear online of debating each other or even condemnation.  Differences in point of view will inevitably stimulate the search for consensus and common ground.  Even if they spend a few hours a day playing games this is not a disaster.  As long as there are rational and fair rules which create a free and equal gaming environment, they realize their own minute wishes individually and in groups, as they learn from expectations, suspicion, pain and joy.  Is this not the process of the tempering of the spirit, gaining independence of character, the broadening of one’s outlook, and increasing one’s intellectual aptitude?  What is wrong with this?

The knowledge of youth is the knowledge of the nation.  Their independence and freedom are the independence and freedom of the nation.  The pursuance of a free life and craving for modern civilization of the 90 million strong new generation of migrant workers seems to be the forceful background of this age.  And the movie “Internet Addiction War”  seems to be a great declaration.  These young people who were born into reform and opening are learning how to leave their reticence.  Independent voices are voluntarily merging into a dynamic flood, saying: We have arrived. 

Note: This is a translation of a editorial which first appeared in Southern Weekly on February 4, 2010. 

RSS 2.0 订阅本文。 回复已经关闭, 您可以 返回您之前浏览的页。或者返回洋人看中国首页