China losing its Millennials. American (Jewish) TV seduces China youth with 'Cultural Marxism' (ie Trotskyism)(1) American (Jewish) TV seduces China youth with 'Cultural Marxism' (ie Trotskyism)(2)  China Is Losing its Millennials: US TV shows push nonconformity & self-realization vs authority & establishment(3) Battle for China's youth: American TV always reflects a distrust of and challenge to authority(4) Korean women seek plastic surgery to look more Western(5) American TV is massively popular among young Chinese for its perceived authenticity(6) Inspired by Western TV, young Chinese rebel against their parents(1) American (Jewish) TV seduces China youth with 'Cultural Marxism' (ie Trotskyism)- by Peter Myers, July 7, 2019Parents of teenagers in the West have seen Hollywood seduce our children, like a Pied Piper leading them astray.Likewise, Pinnochio was led astray by the bright lights. That story, which we all grew up with, carries a warning about the allure of temporary attractions.Hollywood is Jewish-owned and run. Packaged in its 'entertainment' products is cultural subversion, along the lines of 'Cultural Marxism' and Gramsci's 'March through the Institutions'.Yet to young people this appears as Freedom from Authority, Tradition and Responsibility.We in the West are aware of it; but it's been happening in other countries which have embraced Hollywood, such as China and South Korea.China did not recognise it as 'Trotskyism', but this is similar to the anti-Family policy pursued in early Bolshevik Russia before Stalin overthrew Trotsky.That Cultural Revolution was broght to the West by supporters of Trotsky. The 'New Left' is merely a rapackaging of Trotskyism.Young Chinese perceive American TV as "authentic", and challenging authority.What about the murder of JFK by the CIA? How often does Hollywood challenge the established story?Even when it does, it NEVER fingers Mossad.What about 911 as an Inside Job - done by Mossad? Does Hollywood challenge the official narrative?The so-called 'authenticity' of Hollywood is fake, like the bright lights that led Pinnochio astray. It's merely part of Hollywood's self-promotion.The reality of the 'Gender Fluidity' promoted by Hollywood is 'Trans women' admitted to women's change rooms, and competing in women's sports.(2)  China Is Losing its Millennials: US TV shows push nonconformity & self-realization vs authority & establishmenthttp://www.efreenews.com/a/the-chinese-regime-is-losing-the-millennialsThe Chinese Regime Is Losing the MillennialsThe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a tremendous generational problem on their hands. Millennials aren’t behaving in the expected or traditional Chinese manner.A growing number of China’s young people are moving away from what could be considered traditional Chinese attitudes. This includes changing views on authority, the Party, marriage, families and how they want to live their lives. Often, this puts them in direct opposition with the CCP.Ghosts of the One-Child PolicyThe CCP’s most urgent and long-term challenges is the country’s contracting demographics. Many Chinese millennials just aren’t having children—not even one child that prior generations did and which state planners took for granted. The causes aren’t hard to define; four decades of the one-child policy have led to a dramatic fall in the country’s birthrate.That policy, which was instituted in 1979, has had a bigger impact than the intended result. While it did curb China’s population, the CCP’s enforcement of the policy was draconian and inhuman. Mass forced abortions and sterilizations, as well as stiff economic fines were waged against women for having more than one child. These harsh measures went a long way to reshaping Chinese women’s outlook on traditional roles, including marriage and childbearing.Another related factor is education. For the past two decades, women have outnumbered men at China’s universities. Young, highly educated and in well-paying jobs, they value their careers and financial independence over getting married and having children.As a result, China’s population is both shrinking and aging rapidly. By 2030, China will have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 14. By 2050, about one-third of China’s population will be over 60. This poses an existential threat to China’s economic progress.The Marriage Crisis and the EconomyNonetheless, for a growing number of China’s millennials, the ancient tradition and institution of marriage and family has fallen by the wayside. In just the past five years, marriage rates have fallen 30 percent. Many millennial women now view marriage as an artifact of the past, when marriage was necessary just to survive.The impact of this decline poses a threat to the Chinese way of life. Ironically, reducing the birthrate was once considered critical for China’s development; now it’s plaguing the long-term future of the CCP and the country’s economy.That’s why the Chinese leadership is especially desperate for young people in the middle- and upper-income brackets to have children—at least one if not more. As the CCP seeks to move China into a high value producer economy, it will need more high consuming citizens, not fewer. Peasants and unskilled or uneducated workers simply don’t have the buying power of China’s middle class. Even the most strident command economy apologist knows that it’s difficult to grow an economy with a shrinking consumer base. This demographic trend will also put a lot of pressure on social services as well as on children forced to care for their aging parents.China’s New FeminismPredictably, young, urban working women in China are increasingly adopting a more feminists outlook. They’re highly educated and earn a good living. Rising economic development and education tend to lower fertility rates.Additionally, with many having lived abroad, China’s millennial women desire a different way of life. They’re pushing back against state propaganda, rejecting the traditional expectations of marriage and children in favor of delaying or even avoiding both. Their ideals of happiness and fulfillment differ sharply than those of prior generations.Western Influences Are StrongOnce American television shows and movies became accessible in the early 1990s, they heavily influenced the views and ideals of Chinese youth. Yang Gao, a Singapore Management University sociologist who researches foreign entertainment’s influence on Chinese youth, observed that American TV is "massively popular" among the Chinese younger generation.The reasons aren’t surprising. Young people find the individualist ideas of spontaneity, nonconformity, and self-realization very appealing. The common theme of standing up against authority and the establishment are particularly attractive to China’s  millennials.The CCP has determined that additional ideological support is necessary against the invasion of Western values into Chinese culture, or what Chinese leader Xi Jinping termed, "the wrong ideas." Those would include democracy and the rule of law, as well as religious and spiritual beliefs, with Christianity, Islam and Falun Gong at the top of the list. The CCP’s solution is to reinforce political and indoctrination and monitoring of children beginning at the earliest school age, and teachers and university professors, too.But some historical facts simply can’t be avoided, even under the powerful propaganda and censorship of the CCP. China’s millennials are quite aware of the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist political systems and the contrast with open, Western liberal societies that continue to endure. Furthermore, the existence of a free and democratic Taiwan just offshore and Hong Kong’s wealth and relative liberty on the coastal mainland continues to impact the thinking of millennials.Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies the relationship between Chinese youth and the state noted that, "Over the past decade … many Chinese college students—perhaps even a majority of them—prefer elements of liberal democracy to China’s one-party system. I think there is a real threat."The "996" LifeAs millennials become more aware of the rest of the world through travel, entertainment, the internet and social media, their view on work and life has changed. The younger generation works hard in upscale jobs to indulge in luxury items from the West as a reward for their hard work. The "996" life—working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week—is their way out of the life their parents lived. They’re rejecting the dull factory work their parents performed and the stifling propagandistic culture of the Party. They value luxury and autonomy and look down on conformity and authority.The CCP’s Big ChallengeAt the other end of the spectrum, even those that believe in the Marxist ideology are dissatisfied with the current leadership. Some of the most enthusiastic Marxist millennials regard the current party and its leadership as not being Marxist enough. The backlash includes criticism for their hypocrisy on equality and sexism in the Party.With his ascension to leader-for-life, Xi now effectively owns China. That gives him enormous power, but it is also a double-edged sword. The old days of indoctrination of the masses through the totalitarian control of information are long gone. Whatever goes wrong in China, from a struggling economy to appalling levels of pollution to inflation and more, the blame will belong to Xi and the CCP.For Xi Jinping, trying to control the energies, doubts and aspirations of its younger generation may prove to be the most difficult challenges he faces. Dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump may well be the highlight of his day.James Gorrie is a writer based in Texas. He is the author of "The China Crisis."(3) Battle for China's youth: American TV always reflects a distrust of and challenge to authorityhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/09/chinas-youth-admire-america-far-more-than-we-knew-surprising-survey-results-ideological-university-crackdown/China’s Youth Admire America Far More than We KnewThe Communist Party's is responding with a sweeping ideological crackdown on its universities.BY ERIC FISH | FEBRUARY 9, 2017, 2:06 PMIn early December, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered the country’s universities to "adhere to the correct political orientation."Speaking at a conference on ideology and politics in China’s colleges, he stressed that schools must uphold the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership and "guide the broad masses of teachers and students to be strong believers" in Marxist theories and socialist core values.The conference had the highest profile attendee roster of any education event in recent memory: top university officials, representatives from the country’s military and propaganda apparatuses, and four of the seven members of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. In case Xi’s speech left any doubt as to the meeting’s purpose, China’s education minister explained it in an article the following day. "Schools," he wrote, "are the prime targets for the infiltration of hostile forces."For years, China’s leaders have feared that they’re losing their grip on the ideological loyalty of the country’s youth. According to official rhetoric, the forces wresting away young minds are cultural warfare waged through alluring foreign pop culture and the infiltration of "Western values."With the Party firmly in control and no obvious stirrings of a youth-led insurrection, it would be easy to write off this sentiment as paranoia. But according to researchers who study youth attitudes and how they are shaped by popular culture from the West, the commissars may not be so far off the mark. A series of surveys conducted over the past decade have found that many Chinese college students — perhaps even a majority of them — prefer elements of liberal democracy to China’s one-party system. "I think there is a real threat," said Stanley Rosen, a University of Southern California political scientist who researches the relationship between Chinese youth and the state. "Certainly they’ve interpreted [the collapse of Communism] in Russia and Eastern Europe, at least in part, to the infiltration of Western culture."When actor Alan Thicke died in December, there was an outpouring of sympathy on Chinese social media among a generation that had come of age with Thicke’s affable father character on Growing Pains. One of the first U.S. television shows to air in China in the early 1990s, it presented a lifestyle and culture in stark contrast to what Chinese state television offered. "Although this show was from the other side of the world, ordinary Chinese people could relate to it," one Chinese man recently told the Los Angeles Times.Growing Pains’ early 1990s broadcasts in China may be as good a marker as any separating the Chinese generations that came of age before and after an explosion in access to foreign culture. Those born in the late ’80s and ’90s grew up as American entertainment rapidly became accessible — both through censored official channels and uncensored mediums like bootleg videos and the Internet.Today, Hollywood imports still offer an attractive alternative to state television’s tightly controlled lineup dominated by historical costume dramas and anti-Japanese war films. Yang Gao, a Singapore Management University sociologist who researches foreign entertainment’s influence on Chinese youth, says that American television is massively popular among young Chinese for its perceived authenticity. "This fascination is coinciding with the rise of the new ‘golden age’ of quality television in America, with complex characters and unconventional storytelling," she said. "By comparison, Chinese TV can feel uninspired with relatively predictable plotlines and unambiguous characters. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains."Gao says that the Chinese generation born in the ’80s and ’90s came of age amid a clash between traditional collectivist culture and the emergence of individualism. In this atmosphere, Hollywood characters have provided young people a basis on which to interrogate their own identities that isn’t often found in state-sanctioned sources."Growing up we were taught to obey," Gao said. "It’s written all over the political discourse and goes down to the very cultural fabric of society: We value conformity and harmony. But at the same time, economic development is arousing this neoliberal ideal: You must be independent and autonomous — you’re on your own now."In research Gao conducted with university students in Beijing, she found that Hollywood themes of spontaneity, nonconformity, and self-realization particularly resonated with young Chinese fans of American television. "While many students applaud misfits, oddballs, or otherwise unconventional figures on U.S. TV, what seems to have more forcefully struck a chord is the image of a ‘challenger,’" she wrote. "Someone who fights against powerful social establishment or authority."One of Gao’s subjects, a 21-year-old undergraduate, reported being inspired to go to law school by the TV drama Boston Legal’s depiction of lawyers suing government agencies like the FDA. ". . . [To] me, it’s a gesture of challenging authority, which suggests that the authority is challengeable," the woman said. "But in China, I’ve never been exposed to that idea at school, not to mention watching the government get blamed or sued on TV." Said another interviewee, "Whatever the reality is, American TV always reflects a distrust of and challenge to authority, whereas Chinese media basically dodge the issue.""Whatever the reality is, American TV always reflects a distrust of and challenge to authority, whereas Chinese media basically dodge the issue." [...]In many ways, this ideological battle builds on a narrative established after the violent suppression of the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square protests. In the aftermath, the Communist Party realized that its legitimacy, which rested largely on championing socialist egalitarianism and proletarian internationalism, was untenable amid its obvious embrace of capitalism. So it instituted a "patriotic education" in schools that stresses historical "humiliation" at the hands of foreign aggressors. It insists on the inevitability of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" — an official euphemism for the Communist Party’s monopoly power over a capitalist economy — and goes to great lengths to discredit the desirability of "Western democracy."This nationalistic education, coupled with China’s torrid economic growth, is often credited with subduing any interest in lofty political change among the country’s young. The most passionate and well-attended political protests of the past two decades have indeed been directed at the United States and Japan, which might appear to suggest political dissatisfaction has been successfully directed outward.But studies again suggest that the young educated generation that is subject to the full force of the patriotic education is also the one that looks most fondly on the United States and its political system.One 2007 survey of students at several Beijing universities found that 28 percent liked China’s overall political system, with 22 percent expressing dislike, and the rest remaining neutral. Conversely, 56 percent said they liked the overall American political system and only 4 percent disliked it. Results were similar with questions that probed more specifically into attitudes toward American personal liberties, separation of powers, and multi-party elections versus China’s centralized leadership apparatus.The study tested knowledge about each country’s respective political system, and found that students tended to be "fairly well-informed" about both, and the more they knew about each side, the more they liked the U.S. system.These findings would likely surprise anyone who’s spoken at length with Chinese college students, and they came as a great surprise to the study’s author, Professor Chen Shengluo of China Youth University for Political Science. In the study’s conclusion, he noted that in his prior personal interactions and face-to-face interviews with college students, they "almost unanimously" declared that Western democracy is unsuited to China."To put it simply, the survey results formed a sharp contrast with everyday impressions," he noted. "How can we explain this contrast? It is possible, I feel, that the things we usually encounter may only be superficial and manifest political phenomena that cannot truly represent the real wishes of the majority of students."Stanley Rosen, the University of Southern California political scientist, says this accords with surveys conducted for internal government use never released to the public due to political sensitivity, which he accessed through contacts in government-affiliated think tanks. Rosen says one internal survey of history students at nearly three dozen universities, titled "The Influence of Western ‘Cultural Penetration’ and our Countermeasures," found that more than half identified with American cultural concepts propagated by American media and entertainment; only 17 percent didn’t.According to Rosen, it also found that 61 percent identified with "liberalism" and found it to be "a concept of universal moral significance, despite the fact that, as the surveyors put it, everyone knows that liberalism is part of Western political thought and the basis of the ‘democratic system’ associated with Western capitalism."Rosen agreed with Chen Shengluo’s assessment of the contradiction between everyday political conversations with Chinese students and the responses on these anonymous surveys: It likely suggests there’s a sizeable cohort that harbors critical thoughts of its government but does not speak out about these thoughts. "I think that’s what the government recognized," Rosen said. "The people doing the surveys were shocked by the results, and you can be sure they’re seeing even more sensitive surveys."These findings don’t necessarily indicate the desire for a complete transformation of China’s political system. Rosen drew parallels to the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, which are commonly referred to in the short-hand as "democracy protests," but were in fact less about a whole-sale inception of Western liberal democracy and more about simply adopting certain elements like press freedom, personal liberties, and official transparency and accountability. "I don’t think [young Chinese today] would want the exact American system either — I think this past election gives you an example of that," Rosen said. "But if things opened up more, then people would be freer to say ‘maybe these things aren’t such a bad idea after all.’""They don’t see any possibility for change in the Chinese system now, though," he added. "Certainly not in the direction of a democratic system like the U.S. Given the perception that these things are not possible, people don’t think much in terms of how they might or might not work in China."What influence Donald Trump’s presidency will have on young Chinese opinions of American democracy remains to be seen. So far, anecdotally, opinions of Trump appear to be mixed. But admiration of American politics already has notable limitations. A survey of Chinese urban residents by professors from Duke and American University found what they deemed a "bifurcated image" of America. On a scale of 1 to 5, respondents gave American foreign policy and policy toward China relatively low approval scores of just above 2 on average, while American democracy, entertainment, products, and technology all received scores above 4.On a scale of 1 to 5, respondents gave American foreign policy and policy toward China relatively low approval scores of just above 2 on average, while American democracy, entertainment, products, and technology all received scores above 4. "Nationalism matters," the study concluded. "Nevertheless, nationalism’s impact on anti- Americanism is much more nuanced and complicated than conventionally assumed."It added that urban residents generally held more negative views toward U.S. foreign policy, but that attitude didn’t carry over into other political realms. ". . . [The] same group of people, despite heightened nationalism, are actually more likely to appreciate the U.S.’s advantages with respect to science and technology, education, political systems, and other socioeconomic achievements."The ability to tease apart American foreign policy from its culture, with an emphasis on the latter in forming impressions, appears particularly strong among China’s young. A 2016 Pew survey found that 60 percent of Chinese age 18-to-34 have a favorable view of the United States, compared to just 35 percent of those over 50. And a 2009 survey of Chinese under 25 years old found that "Hollywood" was the term that they most commonly associated with the United States."These young people are very pragmatic, even utilitarian people," said Suisheng Zhao, a University of Denver professor who researches Chinese politics and nationalism. "They have much more information, more resources, more education, and they love American culture, music, sports, and movies. A lot of them even want to go to the United States""On the other hand, they’ve gotten used to China’s improving living standards and are proud of its rise," he added. "And they’ve seen all those tensions between China and the U.S. and other countries in the last few decades and feel Western countries haven’t treated China well. So they have mixed feelings."While the "patriotic education" may not have particularly endeared China’s youth to their country’s political system or stopped them from looking fondly at politics in the West, it may still be having desirable effects for China’s leaders — just not in the way one might expect.Haifeng Huang, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Merced, has conducted studies with Chinese university students testing the effects of political and ideological education. In one 2011 survey, he found that most students regard their college political courses as nuisances — only 8 percent said they even somewhat actively study for them. He went on to measure how much students actually absorbed from these classes by replicating questions they might see on their exams. (For example, on the question "What is the essence of elections in capitalist countries?" the "correct" answer is "An important measure to mediate the interests and conflicts within the ruling class," since it suggests that elections in the West are merely facades.)He also solicited the students’ feelings about China’s government and their willingness to partake in certain activities. He found that students with greater comprehension of the political education had no greater satisfaction with the government (more recent, yet-to-be-published surveys found that greater exposure to this education actually makes students trust the government less, Huang says).However, those with greater exposure had a greater belief in the government’s capacity to maintain political order, and hence were less willing to express dissent through mechanisms like strikes or public protests. "That the government is capable of delivering the pompous and sometimes ludicrous propaganda without much overt opposition . . . has implied to the students that the government is strong," Huang concluded.In line with previous studies, Huang’s survey also found that 73 percent of student respondents agreed with the statement "Western political systems are very appropriate for our country."In line with previous studies, Huang’s survey also found that 73 percent of student respondents agreed with the statement "Western political systems are very appropriate for our country." Only 7 percent disagreed. Overall, students expressed lukewarm satisfaction with the Chinese government, but very little willingness to join public demonstrations of discontent."The conventional wisdom about propaganda in authoritarian countries, including China, is that propaganda tends to brainwash people," Huang said. "My argument is that this kind of propaganda will not be able to indoctrinate people, but it may still be effective in that people see the government is able to impose a unified propaganda message on society. The government shows that it has high capacity in social control."He said that in coming years, the growth-driven performance legitimacy that the Communist Party has relied on to maintain public support will be stretched as the economy inevitably continues to slow and confronts painful restructuring. "The Chinese government cannot simply rely on performance legitimacy to sustain its rule," Huang noted. "Given the central role that young people, and especially students, play in political crises, signaling social control capacity to them may actually become more important."Minzner, the Fordham University law professor, said that some of the rhetoric from the education conference on the role of professors in upholding the "correct political line" resembled that which preceded a redefinition of the role of lawyers, and a later spree of lawyer arrests. "I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or so you see professors doing confessions on CCTV," he said.What was also striking from the education conference, Minzner noted, was the absence of the usual nods toward openness to the outside world and learning from foreign achievements and culture while developing China. Instead, there was an emphasis on guiding students to correctly understand the historic inevitability of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" when making international comparisons."I think they are sending a signal," Minzner said. "And that signal alone will probably be enough to accomplish 70 or 80 percent of the goal by increasing self-censorship in universities. Then the push for ideological control may continue in some form until, ideally — from the standpoint of Party censors — it trickles down to students watching what they say even in the dorm room."Gao noted, though, that access to foreign entertainment is ubiquitous on university campuses through many channels. And when living on their own for the first time in a much freer environment compared to the years preceding their university entrance exams, students are especially anxious to access these resources to explore their own identities and worldviews. So the government will face an uphill battle in separating foreign culture from an educated youth cohort that’s especially thirsty for it."I think authorities have reason to be worried," she said. "I heard discontent and criticism of the government among young people of the post-80s generation when I did my first research back in 2009, and I hear it now among the post-90s generation.""But I don’t think it’s some kind of fixed and packaged Western ideologies that they need to be worried about," she added. "It’s the creativity and critical abilities that young people are honing through processing all this outside information and exposure to alternative ways of life."(4) Korean women seek plastic surgery to look more Westernhttps://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/the-effects-of-westernization/The Effects of WesternizationPublished: 23 Jun 2018[...] Although Korea did not fully adopt the (mostly) equal society in terms of gender in America, the idea still penetrated society. This is evident in the many Korean women immigrating to America to escape the patriarchal society of Korea. This also shows the appeal of American culture that has traveled all the way to Korea. But westernization has a hidden negative side that people may not realize or overlook. In South Korea, looks are heavily stressed in society and many young girls can feel the pressure put on them to look a certain way: Psychiatrist Ryu In-Kyun examined how many Korean college girls received plastic surgery in 2007. 52.5% received plastic surgery and 82.1% wanted to receive cosmetic surgery (Park 55). Koreans’ excessive preferences for US values lead Korean people to devalue their culture, especially their bodies, which is a negative effect of American influence in Korea.The reason behind the drastic amount of college girls receiving plastic surgery is the belief that "western" faces are more attractive, with western physical traits such as double eyelids, pale skin, and a V-shaped chin. The effects of westernization can also be seen through everyday speech and writing: Konglish is a cultural fusion of English words such as "ice cream" or "camera" into the Korean language (Rhodes). The incorporation of English words into the Korean language is an obvious effect of westernization. But the real question is whether this symbolizes a loss or deviation away from the native Korean culture. Konglish uses English words but twists the pronunciation to fit Hangul (Korean language), and the Konglish words, when written, are distinctly Korean, so it still retains its original culture while using these half-English words.Furthermore, westernization of South Korea has prompted the vast majority of South Koreans to think of English language ability as the most important element to promote careers (Park 53). English is especially important for obtaining sought-after competitive jobs in Korean large firms like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, as well as high-paying jobs in international companies. People seeking personal economic improvement; therefore, tend to attribute western characteristics by learning English, and Korean students generally prefer the United States as a place to learn the language. But acquiring proficiency in any foreign language is made up of much more than speaking and writing. It embodies the cultural values that the language shapes, and, in this sense, many Korean students are assuming western values. Along with language being westernized, South Korea’s music has also been highly influenced by western ideas. One of the biggest pop culture industries in South Korea is the famous K-pop industry. With trendy songs, complex dances, and beautiful faces, K-pop is the epitome of where Korean and Western cultures unite.According to Jessica Oak and Park Young Woong, "Their combination of Western and Eastern sounds… have all helped K-pop stand out among other genres" (Oak and Woong). Many K-pop songs incorporate different western styles in them such as EDM (electronic dance music), rap, and R&B. K-pop music videos also exhibit the western trend of focusing on telling a story through the music video rather than performing or dancing. Although this wasn’t’ the style of older generation kpop, it is slowly changing due to the western influence. Because of the cultural fusion between the two, K-pop is successful in appealing to both Westerners and Asians in their music and performances. Although K-pop is successful in appealing to the South Koreans with their western infused pop, the same cannot be said about K-pop’s influence in North America. According to Dal Yong Jin and Woonjae Ryoo, some westerners view K-pop as a diluted version of the Western music, making it hard for Korean musicians to find acceptance in the mainstream western pop industry (Jin and Ryoo).This harsher view of K-pop reflects the views that westerners hold of westernization. They are pleased that other countries find western ideas, or in this case, music style to be appealing, but are hesitant to accept the westernized products from other countries because they believe the new products are lesser versions of the actual western product. Thus, for this reason, K-pop has had a hard time finding western audiences that are not previously affiliated with the K-pop genre. Although Westerners may not be very accepting of "diluted" versions of western products, those in Japan are very welcoming of western ideas. Westernization in JapanConsidered to be fairly western, Japan has embraced westernization, which is reflected in their diet, fashion, and education system. First, we can see the effects of westernization through the changes in the Japanese diet throughout time.According to Zenjiro Watanabe, Westernization caused the introduction of dining out in Japan (Watanabe). This change was caused by the diversification in lifestyle that took place in the post World War II period. Urbanization, the social advancement of women, and changes in labor conditions led to a gradual decrease in the traditional scene of the family gathered around the table at mealtime. This new lifestyle demanded increased individualization and simplicity and led to the development of the foodservice industry and instant foods. Thus, as a result of westernization, Japan gained a new style of dining: fast food. But westernization did not cause all positive changes with regard to the Japanese diet. After the surge of western influence in Japan in 1964, Japanese people started eating more than 300% more animal fat, protein, and fat in general (Watanabe). The explanation for this drastic change in the Japanese people’s’ diets can be explained by westernization.During the 1950-1960s, Japan adopted more and more western customs and ideas, such as the first supermarket, which opened in 1963, the introduction of propane, and the use of electricity and gas. These changes also brought about western foods into the Japanese diet. Because westerners promoted the importance of milk and animal proteins in their diet, these trends carried over to the Japanese diet. Moreover, the increase in fast food also contributed to the increase in fat intake, which demonstrates how an initially positive change can result in a negative consequence. Not only is westernization able to be seen in diet trends, it can also be seen through the style and clothing changes across Japan.According to Yuniya Kawamura, During the Taisho period (1912-1926), wearing Western clothing was a symbol of sophistication and an expression of modernity (Kawamura). Because western culture had such a great impact on Japan during the Meiji restoration, the Japanese were very appreciative of western "luxuries," and wearing western clothes was a way to show a higher class. Workers, especially men, started wearing business suits, and kimonos eventually started disappearing from casual life. Although some may argue that because of westernization, Japan lost its traditional values and culture through the disappearance of the kimono, that is not the case. Instead, the kimono is worn on special occasions such as weddings or coming-of-age ceremonies. This makes the event even more special and allows the Japanese to keep their traditional way of dress. In addition to the change in dress, westernization also impacted Japan’s education system. It had greatly changed the educational system in Japan by creating a new system for compulsory schooling in 1871" ("Western Effects on Japanese Culture During the Meiji Period").The educational system in Japan was based on the European system which provided proper education for not just Japanese men, but also for women and children. By the time the educational system had become universal in 1908, most of the Japanese children were able to read and write. Overall, many countries all over the world have experienced many effects of westernization. The western culture has specifically permeated the cultures of China, South Korea, and Japan with regards to the diet, fashion, pop culture, language, and much more. Life in these countries went from watching mundane Chinese shows to humorous western shows, listening to traditional Korean music to K-pop infused with western music styles and English lyrics in South Korea, and from wearing traditional kimonos to business suits in Japan. This just goes to show how every action that we take here in a western country is able to send a ripple to the rest of the world, whether it be a new fashion trend or a way of eating, the ideas from western countries are able to positively or negatively impact non-western countries.(5) American TV is massively popular among young Chinese for its perceived authenticityhttp://www.chinafile.com/features/whys-beijing-so-worried-about-western-values-infecting-chinas-youthWhy’s Beijing So Worried About Western Values Infecting China’s Youth?February 4, 2017Eric FishIn early December, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered the country’s universities to "adhere to the correct political orientation."Speaking at a conference on ideology and politics in China’s colleges, he stressed that schools must uphold the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership and "guide the broad masses of teachers and students to be strong believers" in Marxist theories and socialist core values.The conference had the highest profile attendee roster of any education event in recent memory: top university officials, representatives from the country’s military and propaganda apparatuses, and four of the seven members of the all powerful Politburo Standing Committee. In case Xi’s speech left any doubt as to the meeting’s purpose, China’s education minister explained it in an article the following day. "Schools," he wrote, "are the prime targets for the infiltration of hostile forces."For years, China’s leaders have feared that they’re losing their grip on the ideological loyalty of the country’s youth. According to official rhetoric, the forces wresting away young minds are cultural warfare waged through alluring foreign pop culture and the infiltration of "Western values."With the Party firmly in control and no obvious stirrings of a youth-led insurrection, it would be easy to write off this sentiment as paranoia. But according to researchers who study youth attitudes and how they are shaped by popular culture from the West, the commissars may not be so far off the mark. A series of surveys conducted over the past decade have found that many Chinese college students—perhaps even a majority of them—prefer elements of liberal democracy to China’s one-party system. "I think there is a real threat," said Stanley Rosen, a University of Southern California political scientist who researches the relationship between Chinese youth and the state. "Certainly they’ve interpreted [the collapse of Communism] in Russia and Eastern Europe, at least in part, to the infiltration of Western culture."When actor Alan Thicke died in December, there was an outpouring of sympathy on Chinese social media among a generation that had come of age with Thicke’s affable father character on Growing Pains. One of the first U.S. TV shows to air in China in the early 1990s, it presented a lifestyle and culture in stark contrast to what Chinese state television offered. "Although this show was from the other side of the world, ordinary Chinese people could relate to it," one Chinese man recently told the Los Angeles Times.Growing Pains’ early 1990s broadcasts in China may be as good a marker as any separating the Chinese generations that came of age before and after an explosion in access to foreign culture. Those born in the late-80s and ’90s grew up as American entertainment rapidly became accessible—both through censored official channels and uncensored mediums like bootleg videos and the Internet.Today, Hollywood imports still offer an attractive alternative to state television’s tightly controlled lineup dominated by historical costume dramas and anti-Japanese war films. Yang Gao, a Singapore Management University sociologist who researches foreign entertainment’s influence on Chinese youth, says that American TV is massively popular among young Chinese for its perceived authenticity. "This fascination is coinciding with the rise of the new ‘golden age’ of quality television in America, with complex characters and unconventional storytelling," she said. "By comparison, Chinese TV can feel uninspired with relatively predictable plotlines and unambiguous characters. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains."Gao says that the Chinese generation born in the ’80s and ’90s came of age amid a clash between traditional collectivist culture and the emergence of individualism. In this atmosphere, Hollywood characters have provided young people a basis on which to interrogate their own identities that isn’t often found in state-sanctioned sources."Growing up we were taught to obey," Gao said. "It’s written all over the political discourse and goes down to the very cultural fabric of society: We value conformity and harmony. But at the same time, economic development is arousing this neoliberal ideal: You must be independent and autonomous—you’re on your own now."In research Gao conducted with university students in Beijing, she found that Hollywood themes of spontaneity, nonconformity, and self-realization particularly resonated with young Chinese fans of American TV. "While many students applaud misfits, oddballs, or otherwise unconventional figures on US TV, what seems to have more forcefully struck a chord is the image of a ‘challenger,’" she wrote. "Someone who fights against powerful social establishment or authority."One of Gao’s subjects, a 21-year-old undergraduate, reported being inspired to go to law school by the TV drama Boston Legal’s depiction of lawyers suing government agencies like the FDA. ". . . [To] me, it’s a gesture of challenging authority, which suggests that the authority is challengeable," the woman said. "But in China, I’ve never been exposed to that idea at school, not to mention watching the government get blamed or sued on TV." Said another interviewee, "Whatever the reality is, American TV always reflects a distrust of and challenge to authority, whereas Chinese media basically dodge the issue."These values are at direct odds with what the state tries to instill in its youth. Every September, all incoming college freshmen must attend weeks of military training designed, in part, to instill collectivism, love for the Party, and obedience to authority—the culmination of an education that stresses socialist values and the unchallengeable supremacy of Communist Party rule. Extensive censorship of Chinese entertainment likewise insists on messaging conducive to social stability and the "correct" moral values.China’s censors have attempted to clamp down on popular websites offering American TV shows like NCIS, The Practice, and The Good Wife, and then met withwidespread anger among the shows’ Chinese viewers. In 2014, when The Big Bang Theory was removed from streaming sites, livid fans went online to deem China "West North Korea." The term was quickly blocked on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like social media platform.Gao said that even seemingly innocuous characters on apolitical comedies like Friends and Sex in the City can leave identity-altering impressions with young Chinese, and prompt them to question the values promoted by their schools, parents, and the government."There is a generation gap that is greater when it comes to interpretation of the sub-textual messages in those shows," she said. "With ideas of individualism, democracy, more liberal thoughts, and this elevation of ambiguity and complex individual attitudes over unification and conformity—this is something I think younger generations are more appreciative of than the older generation."How deeply Hollywood’s influence has penetrated China’s young generation is unclear, but over the past decade, its members have demonstrated what appears to be a small but growing willingness to challenge authority.One of the first major environmental protests involving tens of thousands of participants occurred in Xiamen in 2007 over a proposed chemical plant. It was a largely youth-driven rebuke to authority that would repeat itself in cities across the country over the following years. By 2011, Sina Weibo—which was overwhelmingly used by people born after 1980—was hitting its stride, with Internet vigilantes felling a succession of corrupt officials and exposing government misdeeds and cover-ups.In early 2013, protestors both on and offline gave what was perhaps the most significant challenge to authorities since 1989 when they decried press censorship en masse after the staff of a liberal newspaper went on strike over particularly egregious government censorship. Students across the country uploaded pictures of themselves in support of the paper and hundreds protested in person outside its offices.It’s against this backdrop that Xi Jinping ascended to China’s presidency in March 2013. Shortly after, the Communist Party’s fears of foreign ideological infiltration were laid bare with the leak of Document 9, an internal communiqué´ instructing cadres to stop universities and media from discussing seven taboo topics: Western constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society, neoliberalism, the Western concept of press freedom, historical nihilism, and questioning whether China’s system is truly socialist.The document precipitated a sweeping crackdown that’s felled lawyers, rights activists, labor leaders, NGOs, journalists, social media influencers, and generally anyone who’s been outspoken against government policy. Since the imposition of this crackdown, large-scale public protests have ebbed, and Weibo is a shadow of what it once was.Carl Minzner, a specialist in Chinese law and politics at Fordham Law School, says that December’s education conference suggests the campaign is now poised to reach deeper into academia. "This is big and dark," Minzner said. "This is several years in the making and it will likely roll out in colleges over the next several years. We don’t know how far it will go."He added that this trajectory predates Xi Jinping’s presidency. In October 2011—one year before Xi assumed China’s top leadership post—the Communist Party Central Committee emerged from its annual plenum with an agenda focusing on "cultural development" and protecting China’s "cultural security."The following January, then-President Hu Jintao elaborated on the perceived threat, saying that international hostile forces were stepping up their plot to Westernize and divide China. "Ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration," he said. "The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak."That same month, then-Vice President Xi Jinping gave his first signal that higher education would be a key battleground in this struggle. "University Communist Party organs must adopt firmer and stronger measures to maintain harmony and stability in universities," he reportedly told a meeting of university Communist Party officials. "Young teachers have many interactions with students and cast significant [political and moral] influence on them. . . They also play a very important role in the spread of ideas."In late 2013, China established a national security committee to focus on "unconventional security threats," including Western culture. A senior colonel working with the committee said that Hollywood movies were dangerously altering the thinking and values of China’s youth. This posture appeared to pick up steam in academia by early 2015, when China’s then-Minister of Education Yuan Guiren reportedly ordered university officials to disallow teaching materials that "disseminate Western values."In many ways, this ideological battle builds on a narrative established after the violent suppression of the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square protests. In the aftermath, the Communist Party realized that its legitimacy model, which rested largely on championing socialist egalitarianism and proletarian internationalism, was untenable amid its obvious embrace of capitalism. So it instituted a "patriotic education" in schools that stresses historical "humiliation" at the hands of foreign aggressors. It insists on the inevitability of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics"—an official euphemism for the Communist Party’s monopoly power over a capitalist economy—and goes to great lengths to discredit the desirability of "Western democracy."This nationalistic education, coupled with China’s torrid economic growth, is often credited with subduing any interest in lofty political change among the country’s young. The most passionate and well-attended political protests of the past two decades have indeed been directed at the United States and Japan, which might appear to suggest political dissatisfaction has been successfully directed outward.But studies again suggest that the young educated generation that is subject to the full force of the patriotic education is also the one that looks most fondly on the United States and its political system.One 2007 survey of students at several Beijing universities found that 28 percent liked China’s overall political system, with 22 percent expressing dislike, and the rest remaining neutral. Conversely, 56 percent said they liked the overall American political system and only 4 percent disliked it. Results were similar with questions that probed more specifically into attitudes toward American personal liberties, separation of powers, and multi-party elections versus China’s centralized leadership apparatus.The study tested knowledge about each country’s respective political system, and found that students tended to be "fairly well-informed" about both, and the more they knew about each side, the more they liked the U.S. system.These findings would likely surprise anyone who’s spoken at length with Chinese college students, and they came as a great surprise to the study’s author—Professor Chen Shengluo of China Youth University for Political Science. In the study’s conclusion, he noted that in his prior personal interactions and face-to-face interviews with college students, they "almost unanimously" declared that Western democracy is unsuited to China."To put it simply, the survey results formed a sharp contrast with everyday impressions," he noted. "How can we explain this contrast? It is possible, I feel, that the things we usually encounter may only be superficial and manifest political phenomena that cannot truly represent the real wishes of the majority of students."Stanley Rosen, the USC political scientist, says this accords with surveys conducted for internal government use never released to the public due to political sensitivity, which he accessed through contacts in government-affiliated think tanks. Rosen says one internal survey of history students at nearly three dozen universities, titled "The Influence of Western ‘Cultural Penetration’ and our Countermeasures," found that more than half identified with American cultural concepts propagated by American media and entertainment; only 17 percent didn’t.According to Rosen, it also found that 61 percent identified with "liberalism" and found it to be "a concept of universal moral significance, despite the fact that, as the surveyors put it, everyone knows that liberalism is part of Western political thought and the basis of the ‘democratic system’ associated with Western capitalism."Rosen agreed with Chen Shengluo’s assessment of the contradiction between everyday political conversations with Chinese students and the responses on these anonymous surveys: It likely suggests there’s a sizeable cohort that harbors critical thoughts of its government but does not speak out about these thoughts. "I think that’s what the government recognized," Rosen said. "The people doing the surveys were shocked by the results, and you can be sure they’re seeing even more sensitive surveys."These findings don’t necessarily indicate the desire for a complete transformation of China’s political system. Rosen drew parallels to the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, which are commonly referred to in the short-hand as "democracy protests," but were in fact less about a whole-sale inception of Western liberal democracy and more about simply adopting certain elements like press freedom, personal liberties, and official transparency and accountability. "I don’t think [young Chinese today] would want the exact American system either—I think this past election gives you an example of that," Rosen said. "But if things opened up more, then people would be freer to say ‘maybe these things aren’t such a bad idea after all.’""They don’t see any possibility for change in the Chinese system now, though," he added. "Certainly not in the direction of a democratic system like the U.S. Given the perception that these things are not possible, people don’t think much in terms of how they might or might not work in China."What influence Donald Trump’s presidency will have on young Chinese opinions of American democracy remains to be seen. So far, anecdotally, opinions of Trump appear to be mixed. But admiration of American politics already has notable limitations. A survey of Chinese urban residents by professors from Duke and American University found what they deemed a "bifurcated image" of America. On a scale of 1 to 5, respondents gave American foreign policy and policy toward China relatively low approval scores of just above 2 on average, while American democracy, entertainment, products, and technology all received scores above 4."Nationalism matters," the study concluded. "Nevertheless, nationalism’s impact on anti- Americanism is much more nuanced and complicated than conventionally assumed."It added that urban residents generally held more negative views toward U.S. foreign policy, but that attitude didn’t carry over into other political realms. ". . . [The] same group of people, despite heightened nationalism, are actually more likely to appreciate the U.S.’s advantages with respect to science and technology, education, political systems, and other socioeconomic achievements."The ability to tease apart American foreign policy from its culture, with an emphasis on the latter in forming impressions, appears particularly strong among China’s young. A 2016 Pew survey found that 60 percent of Chinese age 18-to-34 have a favorable view of the United States, compared to just 35 percent of those over 50. And a 2009 survey of Chinese under 25 years old found that "Hollywood" was the term that they most commonly associated with the United States."These young people are very pragmatic, even utilitarian people," said Suisheng Zhao, a University of Denver professor who researches Chinese politics and nationalism. "They have much more information, more resources, more education, and they love American culture, music, sports, and movies. A lot of them even want to go to the U.S.""On the other hand, they’ve gotten used to China’s improving living standards and are proud of its rise," he added. "And they’ve seen all those tensions between China and the U.S. and other countries in the last few decades and feel Western countries haven’t treated China well. So they have mixed feelings."While the "patriotic education" may not have particularly endeared China’s youth to their country’s political system or stopped them from looking fondly at politics in the West, it may still be having desirable effects for China’s leaders—just not in the way one might expect.Haifeng Huang, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Merced, has conducted studies with Chinese university students testing the effects of political and ideological education. In one 2011 survey, he found that most students regard their college political courses as nuisances—only 8 percent said they even somewhat actively study for them. He went on to measure how much students actually absorbed from these classes by replicating questions they might see on their exams. (For example, on the question "What is the essence of elections in capitalist countries?" the "correct" answer is "An important measure to mediate the interests and conflicts within the ruling class," since it suggests that elections in the West are merely facades.)He also solicited the students’ feelings about China’s government and their willingness to partake in certain activities. He found that students with greater comprehension of the political education had no greater satisfaction with the government (more recent, yet-to-be-published surveys found that greater exposure to this education actually makes students trust the government less, Huang says).However, those with greater exposure had a greater belief in the government’s capacity to maintain political order, and hence were less willing to express dissent through mechanisms like strikes or public protests. "That the government is capable of delivering the pompous and sometimes ludicrous propaganda without much overt opposition . . . has implied to the students that the government is strong," Huang concluded.In line with previous studies, his survey also found that 73 percent of student respondents agreed with the statement "Western political systems are very appropriate for our country." Only 7 percent disagreed. Overall, students expressed lukewarm satisfaction with the Chinese government, but very little willingness to join public demonstrations of discontent."The conventional wisdom about propaganda in authoritarian countries, including China, is that propaganda tends to brainwash people," Huang said. "My argument is that this kind of propaganda will not be able to indoctrinate people, but it may still be effective in that people see the government is able to impose a unified propaganda message on society. The government shows that it has high capacity in social control."He said that in coming years, the growth-driven performance legitimacy that the Communist Party has relied on to maintain public support will be stretched as the economy inevitably continues to slow and confronts painful restructuring. "The Chinese government cannot simply rely on performance legitimacy to sustain its rule," Huang noted. "Given the central role that young people, and especially students, play in political crises, signaling social control capacity to them may actually become more important."Carl Minzner, the Fordham University law professor, said that some of the rhetoric from the education conference on the role of professors in upholding the "correct political line" resembled that which preceded a redefinition of the role of lawyers, and a later spree of lawyer arrests. "I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or so you see professors doing confessions on CCTV," he said.What was also striking from the education conference, Minzner noted, was the absence of the usual nods toward openness to the outside world and learning from foreign achievements and culture while developing China. Instead, there was an emphasis on guiding students to correctly understand the historic inevitability of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" when making international comparisons."I think they are sending a signal," Minzner said. "And that signal alone will probably be enough to accomplish 70 or 80 percent of the goal by increasing self-censorship in universities. Then the push for ideological control may continue in some form until, ideally—from the standpoint of Party censors—it trickles down to students watching what they say even in the dorm room."Yang Gao noted though that access to foreign entertainment is ubiquitous on university campuses through many channels. And when living on their own for the first time in a much freer environment compared to the years preceding their university entrance exams, students are especially anxious to access these resources to explore their own identities and worldviews. So the government will face an uphill battle in separating foreign culture from an educated youth cohort that’s especially thirsty for it."I think authorities have reason to be worried," she said. "I heard discontent and criticism of the government among young people of the post-80s generation when I did my first research back in 2009, and I hear it now among the post-90s generation.""But I don’t think it’s some kind of fixed and packaged Western ideologies that they need to be worried about," she added. "It’s the creativity and critical abilities that young people are honing through processing all this outside information and exposure to alternative ways of life."(6) Inspired by Western TV, young Chinese rebel against their parentshttps://www.ft.com/content/dae2c548-4226-11e8-93cf-67ac3a6482fdThe quiet revolution: China’s millennial backlashYoung Chinese rebel against their parents professionally, personally and politicallyYuan Yang in BeijingAPRIL 18, 2018Faye Lu, a Beijing-based businesswoman, chose the Chinese new year after her 30th birthday to come clean to her family. At the biggest social gathering in the Chinese calendar, she prepared a New Year’s Eve feast for her parents and 20 relatives — more than 10 dishes including roast fatty pork, pork ribs and fried pickled cabbage. The feast, she knew, would give her the right to make a speech."You have taken care of me for 30 years," she told her guests seated at the table. "I am very grateful to you all. I have had the opportunity to travel and to get to know many different cultures, who have different attitudes to marriage. And I can see that despite their differences to us, they are still happy . . . "Lu was circling around a problem: as an unmarried 30-year-old, she is seen by her parents and their contemporaries as a "leftover woman". At the end of her speech, she presented a veiled request: "I am so grateful to you for not bothering my parents too much to ask when I am getting married."When she had confided in friends what she planned to say at the dinner, they did their best to dissuade her. She was hoping for the impossible: to convince her family she could be 30, single and happy. When Lu had discussed her ideas about the future before, her parents said she had been "poisoned by foreigners" while studying abroad. But she was determined to carve out a different life for herself.Across China, millennials like her are committing small acts of rebellion. Society puts pressure on young people in China to find a good job, buy an apartment and get married — in that order, before the age of 30. But economic restructuring, soaring house prices and increasing numbers of students in higher education are making those goals harder for millennials than they were for their parents. At the same time, millennials have developed different visions of the "good life" to their parents. This generation wants something new from China, and in pursuing it they are changing China, too. A quiet revolution is under way.Behind a stall in Beijing’s central business district, a barista offers drinks with names such as "Can’t-Afford-To-Buy-A-House Iced Lemon Tea". Another stall of the same chain sells "My Ex-Girlfriend’s Marrying Someone With Rich Parents Fruit Juice". This is the brand Sang Tea (sang meaning "dejected, dispirited") — a business that began in Shanghai last year, initially meant to be a temporary pop-up stall to mock the brand "Lucky Tea", but whose dark comedy and deadpan presentation resounded with millennials, and prompted franchises to open across the country.Society puts pressure on young people in China to find a good job, buy an apartment, and get married — in that order, before the age of 30"A cup of negative energy a day," promises a logo on Sang Tea’s website. The phrase is a pun on the slogan of "positive energy" that President Xi Jinping likes to use to exhort young people to support their country’s development.The success of Sang Tea rests on the growth of sang culture — the millennial self-mocking, semi-ironic embrace of giving up, which has launched viral internet picture-memes, videos and fiction. The 28-year-old writer Zhao Zengliang, who is often associated with sang culture through her dry-humoured internet presence, says of the phenomenon: "Sang culture is where you can take a breather [from the pressures of competition], and where everyone can honestly just admit, ‘I don’t feel I’m good enough.’ "Despite being born into a relatively prosperous period, well-educated millennials in big cities not only face unprecedented competition in the labour market but are also finding it harder to buy what Chinese people tend to see as the most fundamental asset: an apartment. For young men, owning a property is seen as a prerequisite for marriage, and it is said to be unlucky to give birth to a child while living in a rented flat. Some 70 per cent of Chinese millennials achieve home-ownership, according to research by HSBC — compared with 35 per cent in the US. But house price rises have far outstripped most people’s salary increases. The average price per sq metre in China’s major cities has almost doubled over the past eight years, according to Wind, a data company.For the previous generation, who grew up in a planned economy, being part of a large state-owned enterprise or a government department meant the system would take care of you for life, offering rudimentary healthcare, a pension, and even a house. This bargain was called the "iron rice bowl", and Lu’s parents ate from it, being factory workers.Today, those who are not fortunate enough to have family homes in China’s big cities, where professional jobs accumulate, will start shelling out the world’s most unaffordable rents upon graduation. A study last year by real estate research company E-house China R&D Institute found that in Beijing the average tenant spends 58 per cent of their income on rent; in Shenzhen the figure is 54 per cent, and in Shanghai 48 per cent. By comparison, the UK’s Office for National Statistics reckons that as of 2016, the average rent-to-income ratio in London was 49 per cent. China’s millennials are starting to experience the economic precarity of their western peers.With the growth of the private sector and university education, so too has grown the pressure to accumulate internships (often for little pay), overseas experiences and other such CV-boosting exercises. In 2017, almost half of all new labour market entrants were university graduates — a record 8m, up from roughly 4m a decade ago. Amid this competition and a slowing economy, the average monthly income for new graduates fell 16 per cent to Rmb4,014 ($590) in 2017, continuing the decline of the previous year, according to recruitment website Zhaopin.Despite having a solid career as the head of international development for a major Chinese company, Lu longs to do something more creative: to become a documentary-maker. She is not alone: over 82 per cent of post-1990s kids in China would choose a different job to the one they have if they could, according to a survey of 1.2m people by Wonder Technology, a tech start-up that uses voice-based psychological assessments to help millennials find their ideal date and career."Chinese students mostly select a university degree by choosing the most prestigious degree course that will accept their score. That score has little to do with what they value," says Wendy Wu of Wonder Technology. "They largely chose their career based on their university degrees, which in turn they chose based on their entrance exam scores," she adds. "I call these the ‘lost millennials’."Unsurprisingly, sang culture has attracted hand-wringing from the online edition of the government mouthpiece, The People’s Daily, who called it "spiritual opium". Ironically, such diatribes are written in the chest-thumping revolutionary language that often sounds dated to millennials. "The thoughts and ideas of young people will determine the future values of the Chinese people," wrote The People’s Daily, "Smile, get up, be brave, refuse to drink Sang Tea".The People’s Daily editorial probably made the Sang Tea phenomenon more, rather than less, popular online. The rise of microblogging website Weibo in the early 2010s raised a generation of netizens attuned to online drama. Millennials dominate the irreverent social-media discourse that has flourished in a nation of 753m mobile internet users. They enjoy internet freedoms that, though curtailed by the government, expose them to ideas their parents would never have entertained during the more strictly propagandist era of television and radio broadcasting.But millennials wanting freedom in their private or social lives, particularly online, are starting to find that the political often infringes on the personal. Over the past two years President Xi, who likes to be termed "Papa Xi", has tightly restricted millennials’ access to their natural habitat — the online world — shutting down Weibo accounts, clamping down on live-streaming platforms, and increasing the censorship of articles and videos across China’s flourishing "self-publishing" online space."The post-1990s generation are masters of online mobilisation via social media. Despite censorship, they know how to ‘grab eyeballs’ through creating and circulating visually arresting photos and slogans," says Diana Fu, assistant professor of Asian politics at the University of Toronto. (Although in the west, millennials are generally defined as those born between the early 80s and the late 90s, in China people tend to split generations more narrowly, speaking of the "post-1990s" generation in the same way English speakers say "millennial".)However, as Fu cautions, there is a difference between getting hits online — sometimes derided as "slacktivism" — and getting people committed to a cause.While China’s online tribes include factions in favour of universal rights, equality and democracy, there is also a growing wave of young nationalists and authoritarians, known domestically as "little pinks". The Party is trying to get internet-savvy, hiring private designers and film studios to create millennial-friendly propaganda."There are more nationalists among the younger generation, because of the influence of Communist party education, and because of the increasing social and economic pressures they face," says political commentator Qiao Mu. A study by think-tank Merics found that nationalists, who love to vent their opinions as part of China’s growing army of online trolls, were more likely to be dissatisfied with their personal economic situation compared with other online tribes.Working-class millennials in smaller towns, and rural millennials, have less freedom to beat their own path. The 17-year-old student interns assembling iPhones at Foxconn’s factory in Zhengzhou, for example, accepted whatever jobs their vocational-school teachers gave them. Their socialisation by China’s rigid education system, to accept authority figures dictating their personal lives, may also explain why so many young Chinese also accept the government’s authoritarian over-reach into their private spaces.Terri Yang, a 24-year-old from a small town in Hunan, one of China’s poorer central-southern provinces, quit high school to move to Beijing. "I had a dream one night I was in Beijing, and so I went," she says. At her parents’ request she enrolled in a vocational college to become a masseuse and acupuncturist. After a bout of illness last year she took time off work and reflected on how she had ended up in what she called a "tiresome" job, dealing with complaining patients as a hospital intern for Rmb2,000 ($320) per month, 80 per cent of which she had to spend on rent."Chinese parents are conservative: they want you to respect the plans they’ve made for you. My parents think I have no ideals," she says. But then during her sick leave, she realised that as a young teenager, she had plenty of ideals — just not the ones her parents had hoped for.Yang is now working towards her ambition to open a café in her hometown, and to give it a queer-themed name. Currently her hometown has no cafés — and no "out" lesbians, she says."When I was 13 I watched a TV programme set in the UK about someone opening a café, how he designed and planned it all," she says. Despite speaking no English, the image stuck with her for more than 10 years. She is now working and training in Beijing at the Korean café chain Caffe Bene to pursue her dream. Before starting, she had not even tasted coffee, which is only popular in China’s big cities.Her parents accept her café-opening plan because it accommodates their desire for her to have a stable career with another common Chinese parental desire — that she return to her hometown.Like Terri, Baoyi Liang, a 25-year-old theatre set designer, also found her childhood hopes clashing with those of her parents. She recalls telling them she wanted to be an artist at the age of eight. "You’ll end up on the street drawing people’s portraits," they warned her. Eventually they agreed to support her through six years of living and studying in London, where she graduated from Central Saint Martins. After graduation, she worked as a waitress in Islington, north London, while doing design projects on the side. "It sounds silly, but it was then that I first realised being a waitress wasn’t humiliating," she says, sitting in a sushi restaurant in Beijing while uniformed waitresses circle us. "If I had been a waitress in China, it would have been considered an ‘indecent’ job — all that education for nothing. But in that café in Islington, my colleagues were all really happy. They were all working evenings and being actors or scriptwriters in their spare time."This broadening of ideas of a good career is exemplified by Han Han, the 35-year-old novelist most celebrated by millennials, who wrote on his Weibo microblog earlier this month, "Success isn’t about how many millions you earn. From a billionaire to a gardener, art editor or a programmer . . . everyone has their role and their destiny, each has their own kind of happiness."Han was reacting to what he called the "anxiety peddling" of an article headlined "Your Contemporaries Are Leaving You Behind", about another influential millennial, Hu Weiwei, the 36-year-old founder of bike-sharing tech start-up Mobike. The piece contrasts the careers of Hu with what it calls the "mediocre" lives of her peers who fall short of such success. "You said we’d walk the paths of our youth together," the author writes, imagining a dialogue between two classmates, "but you went and bought a car."Perhaps one of China’s most well-known millennial rebels is the 29-year-old student Li Maizi, part of the so-called "Feminist Five" who were jailed for a month for planning to protest against sexual harassment on subways. What could have been a non-governmental issue became an international scandal as the result of her jailing.But over the Chinese new year festival two years ago, she made her mark on the subway system in Beijing. Li was part of an "anti-marriage-pressure alliance" who used social media to crowdfund an advert warning against nagging one’s children at the annual familial gathering. It stayed up for a month in Dongzhimen station, one of Beijing’s busiest, and roughly 40,000 people donated."Dear mums and dads, the world is so big, there are so many types of people, it’s possible to be happy and single," the poster read.Lu’s parents have not fully got the message, and are still trying to set her up on blind dates — the latest with a young employee at Beijing Capital Airport, whom they had thought eligible based on the criteria that "an airport won’t ever go out of business". But at least one of her uncles understood what she was asking for at the Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner."Don’t worry, I know exactly what you mean, and I won’t bother your parents about when you’re getting married," he said. And then he added: "If the others don’t understand what you mean, they can come talk to me about it."Yuan Yang is the FT’s Beijing correspondent