China Decode: What the Fire Horse Reveals About China’s Past and Future

19:04Alice Han:It's a universal thing, unfortunately.

19:06Lijia Zhang:Yeah, so a woman born by horse, a year of dragons, supposed to have strong personality that can potentially put some people off, put some men off.

19:18Alice Han:So one other thing related to the government's incentives to try to have, you know, women to have more children. We've talked about this previously. You know, you grew up in China and you probably witnessed some of the one-child policy, but you've also grown up in the West. How do you think about this birth issue in China? You know, there's so many different ways to look at it. Marriage rates are declining, fertility rates are declining. How do you see this issue?

19:43Lijia Zhang:I'm glad you asked the question because that's the issue I'm very interested in. In fact, when I went to China last year, I interviewed tons of people with the idea to write a book about a changing attitude towards marriage and motherhood. As you know that the birth rate is a decline, the rate of marriage is decline, and divorce is rising. I think that pattern actually fits into the pattern of the developed country. Generally speaking, when a society develops, when women get a good education, good jobs, the fertility rate goes down. Because the women want to live their lives, they want to live life on their own terms.

20:26Lijia Zhang:And I think this is particularly driven by urban educated women. They do not see marriage or motherhood as the necessary ingredients for a happy, fulfilling life. They want to do their own things. They want to travel, they want to be free, and they want to pursue their career. And particularly in China, as you know, China is not particularly for married women. There's still lots of discrimination against married women in workplace, which is why you see that the birth rate is declining. I think in many ways, the economy is the best contraception.

21:06Alice Han:The economy is the best contraception. I'm going to have to use that line. That's a great line. Feel free. Well, yeah, on that note, you know, I think people in the West are very curious about what feminism looks like or female empowerment looks like. Can you tell us a little bit about how that's evolved over time? Certainly women have gotten richer. They're having better careers. But I also think that what's interesting to me to see when I look at the trajectories of women in business in China compared to, say, Korea or Japan in China, we see the highest number of female self-made billionaires.

21:42Alice Han:Now, obviously, you have to factor in the size of the population, but it seems like there's a lot of social cultural support for females in business.

21:50Lijia Zhang:Yes, absolutely. Half of the world's self-made women, the top 10, half of them come from China. So that's the area that women can show their strengths because that area depends less on other people. So I think Chinese women are brilliant, very enterprising. I think today's young women, they are far more assertive compared to the older generation. They want to live their life to the full. They want to live their life on their own terms. They're also willing to put down their feet. And sometimes they flatly reject their parents' request for them to get married. Sometimes they found some tricks. For example, have you heard this new business of renting boyfriend or girlfriend?

22:39Alice Han:I've heard about this. Yes.

22:42Lijia Zhang:So the Chinese New Year time. So anyway, children, they live in Beijing, big cities in Beijing, Shanghai. And then they go to their hometown for the spring festival. And they are supposed to bring their girlfriends or boyfriends. So they don't have one. So sometimes to fool their parents, they will rent a girlfriend or a boyfriend to go home to show their parents.

23:08Alice Han:Oh, wow. Yeah, I could see that happening. And in a way, that can't be disrupted by AI because they physically need to bring back somebody to their hometown. Yes. That's very interesting. And you also see this trope in Chinese social media. and I also hear this amongst my Guimi, my friends, my good friends in China, of successful older women professionally dating much younger men. Yeah, Xiaoxi Roux. Yes, exactly. Have you been following this?

23:34Lijia Zhang:Yes. So, you know, some young men, the older women are more experienced, more interesting. They have a lot more to offer. And also they probably have more money. the guys don't have all the pressure to pay for them. Some of them probably will enjoy some free meals.

23:56Alice Han:Yes, it certainly changes this culture of 大難主業 in China, you know, chauvinism, which did exist. If you look back to a really pre-revolutionary, pre-CCP China, Chinese culture was very patriarchal. And yet I feel now there's quite a strong female element to Chinese society. At least I see this personally.

24:19Lijia Zhang:Yes, I have found the whole thing so interesting. So officially, feminist movement has died, supposedly, you know, because all the online media forms. I used to have lots of, I still do have lots of feminist friends and there were a family school. I went to China's first family school. I was graduated from China's first family school. And then Li Quan-Zhizhen voice of feminists, the online platform was shut down. Lots of feminist-related NGOs were shut down. So the Chinese authorities really don't allow, don't like feminist movement, and they blame the Western influence. But the daily feminism exists everywhere, and it is growing.

25:09Lijia Zhang:Women found interesting ways to push for gender equality. They form informal discussion groups and they help each other. So yes, so ultimately, feminist movements has not died in China. It is growing.

25:27Alice Han:Well, that just reminds me so much of how in China, there's always a way to go around regulations. You know, when people had the private tutor in Crackdown, I heard stories that wealthy families were bringing in PhD nannies, PhD baumu, to come and teach their children and be effectively a governess or a home tutor. And similarly, with the gaming crackdown, young underage kids were just using their grandparents' ID on their faces to log into the gaming console. You know, people think that top-down and regulatory crackdown can be quite harsh, but oftentimes there is a way in which people obviate the rules.

26:05Alice Han:Yes, that's China for

26:06Lijia Zhang:you, there's always a way to get around it.

26:09Alice Han:Interesting. All right, we're going to take one last quick break, so stay with us.

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28:59Alice Han:Welcome back. The Chinese New Year is the largest annual human migration on Earth. This year, China expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips during the 40-day Spring Festival period, higher than last year's 9.02 billion. Rail travel alone is expected to hit 540 million trips, Aviation, 95 million. And for the first time, the official holiday has been extended to nine days, in part to boost domestic consumption. Li Jia, have you actually been in one of these huge trips to go back to your hometown? Where did you grow up in China?

29:35Lijia Zhang:I grew up in Nanjing, not far from your hometown, Shanghai. Yes, I grew up there on the banks of the Yangtze River.

29:43Alice Han:So did you have to commute at all to go back, or did you live where your parents lived to go back to?

29:48Lijia Zhang:New Year's Festival. Later, I lived in Beijing, and I did once, yes, a couple of times I joined the Chunyun. It was regarded as the largest annual human migration, as millions of people who lived away from the hometown rushed back. Yeah, it was just packed. And I had friends who helped me to buy tickets. Otherwise, it was very difficult to secure a seat. And the people, they ride the motorbikes for 10 hours or something. Just to get home? Yes, get home. Yes, that still happens. But also people now team up. There are different apps. They can team up. I need to go home from Beijing to Nanjing, for example, or anybody wants to join me.

30:38Lijia Zhang:So they will take a chance to drive.

30:40Alice Han:It's the ride-sharing economy.

30:41Lijia Zhang:Yeah. That's great.

30:42Alice Han:And so Chinese New Year is always about returning home, spending time with family. How do you think about this idea of massive amounts of Chinese people migrating long distances to go back home? What does that say about the way in which China has urbanized and changed? Because historically, you would live closer to home. Really, from the 80s onwards, people start proliferating, moving for university, for jobs. How do you think about that sociological movement, really, from the 80s onwards?

31:13Lijia Zhang:So ever since the reform opening up, people were allowed to move from one place to another. So there's no democracy as such, but their personal freedom has increased a great deal. So people were allowed to move away from their hometown and settle whenever they could find opportunity. So yes, China has become more mobile. When the reform started, 70 % of the Chinese lived in the countryside. Now it's about, you know, just through a few generations, industrialization has taken place, urbanization. Now probably 70 % of people live in the city.

32:00Alice Han:You know, I've been following this idea of, you know, the new generation in China, Gen Z, wanting to take it easier. You know, you hear a lot, even in the West, this concept of Tangping, you know, lying flat. And some people are deciding they want to move back to the lower tier cities where their parents or grandparents are from and live an easier life where rent and house prices are a little bit lower. And they can do local jobs as opposed to really struggling and working hard in the tier one cities. Is that something that you've noticed in your travels back and forth to China?

32:30Lijia Zhang:Of course, it's difficult not to notice that. and Tang Ping, a character played by the famous actor Goyou. He just lies flat there. The reason for that is that social mobility has stagnated. When the reform opening up happened, suddenly there's a huge amount of opportunity. If you work hard, you're willing to try, start a new business, more likely you'll be successful. But today, if you even go to university, it's not guaranteed you may find a job. The youth unemployment is very, very high. So the social mobility has narrowed a great deal and it almost stagnated. So no matter how hard you try, you're probably not going to go far.

33:22Lijia Zhang:So that's why some people just decided they had enough. They're just thumping, just lying flat, They just decide not to try hard. Some of them move back home, or some just move back with their parents. Even there are some extreme cases that, have you heard this term called 老鼠猪? Rat. Rat. There's a rat clan. People live like a rat. They don't stay up late and watch them playing a computer game or playing on their phone. And they sleep during the day. They rent a tiny, tiny place. One woman even kind of documented her life as a rat.

34:07Alice Han:So they're living sort of nocturnal lives and in small confined spaces, not working.

34:13Lijia Zhang:Yeah, sometimes in the basement, just the tiny space, yeah. Interesting. So life can be really hard for some young, today's young people. But overall, I would say that life has become a great deal easier. Like, for example, I remember the Chinese New Year fondly and my grandma chopping, making minced pork. But today you can just buy ready-made minced. You can buy ready-made dumpling wraps. It's easier if you want to make dumpling. But unfortunately, so many families don't bother to make the reunion dinner anymore. They go to a restaurant, like my sister.

34:55Alice Han:They are going to a restaurant.

34:56Lijia Zhang:They go to a restaurant. They book a restaurant. They have a 10-course feast or whatever.

35:03Alice Han:That's interesting to me because culturally, at least growing up, it was always something you had at home, the New Year's feast. And my mother would always sort of judge, I shouldn't say this, But my mother would always judge non-Chinese people for going out and eating out in restaurants. She didn't consider that to be very familial. Yes. So she always said that it's better to do it at home. So that's interesting. It's changed. The culture has changed.

35:27Lijia Zhang:It's also a family time. You make the effort. Each person, you know, like we kids, we helped. We got up and buy vegetables. My grandmother stayed up a whole night to cook all the dishes. And you sit down and you enjoy the food together. But that tradition is now dying since, and particularly in big cities. And people cannot be bothered anymore, just go to. And also another factor is that I mentioned I lived for the Chinese New Year because it's the only time we could eat. And also we could have a hongbao, the Chinese lucky money. And also there will be fireworks.

36:07Alice Han:Well, tell us a little bit about that because maybe not everyone knows. but there are a lot of traditions related to New Year's. I remember as a kid, it was one of my favorite times of the year because I would get money from all my relatives. I'd get cash in the little hongbao, the red envelope. And as a kid, that's kind of what you live for, to replenish your piggyback. What are some of the traditions in Chinese New Year that are very unique to China?

36:31Lijia Zhang:So that's the hongbao, the New Year money, New Year lucky money. So often parents will stuff a few coins and put in a red envelope. Because red is a very auspicious color in China. It can supposedly drive away the evil spirit. So the parents will put the New Year lucky money in a red envelope and stuff it under the children's pillow. Bring the children good luck. I loved it. I mean, it was not very much. It's just one or two coins, but it just made me so happy. And also there's fireworks. So on the New Year's Eve, that's the time for the Chinese reunion dinner. At 12 midnight, that's the time to set off fireworks and firecrackers.

37:21Lijia Zhang:Oh, my goodness. You should have seen. Have you ever seen it, Alice?

37:26Alice Han:Not in person, no, actually. I mean, in Australia, we never really, I think our neighbors would be annoyed if we launched firecrackers. But I've seen firecrackers in China.

37:34Lijia Zhang:Yeah, as we were growing up, so every year we looked forward to it. And that was just so dramatic. Just imagine millions of families set off firecrackers by the same time. The noise was deafening. The sky was on fire. And we just thought as children, we just thought of something immense, monumental was happening. like in the new year, was blasted into existence. It was so exciting.

38:03Alice Han:So what was the meaning of the firecrackers in Chinese culture? Why?

38:08Lijia Zhang:Yeah, so the firecrackers, so according to the legend, you set off firecrackers to welcome the new year, and the loud noise is to drive away the evil spirit, the mythical monster called Nian, as the year Nian. So that's why you let off fireworks to drive away the evil spirit and welcome the arrival of the New Year. So if I think about the Chinese New Year, I remember two sounds. One is the fireworks. Another one is my grandmother chopping with her. Meats to meat. Meats to meat. For the dumplings? For the dumplings, yeah.

38:46Alice Han:And what other foods do you have on your menu? I know growing up there were a lot of noodles. There was always a fish dish.

38:52Lijia Zhang:Yes, there's always a fish dish because fish in Chinese is yu, which means surplus. I'm hoping that everything will be in abundance. There will be surplus leftover. So that's fish, yes. So if you actually don't eat the fish during the New Year dinner, so my grandmother will bring the dish. So see, there's this fish and then she'll put it away for later. So if you eat it, there won't be any surplus. So that's a fish dish, but not eaten immediately. And then there are always dumplings, jiaozi, because the shape of a dumpling vaguely resembles the gold ingots of the olden days. So the dumpling resembles, represents wealth.

39:39Lijia Zhang:And also there's another essential food is the tangyuan, the sweet dumpling filled with sweet sesame or with red bean paste. So those are the essentials.

39:53Alice Han:That was my favorite. The tangyuan is always my favorite. You can also have savory ones with meat. Pork meat is also very good. And then there's another nianggou, niangya yu gou. My mother used to always say it's like every year you're growing. Yes, the sticky rice cake. Sticky rice cake. Yeah, so much delicious food to have, I think, in the coming days, certainly as we celebrate the Lunar New Year. Well, thank you so much, Lijia, for your time. And certainly, I know you'll be making delicious food and dumplings. I certainly will be. But thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. All right, that's all for this very special episode to celebrate the China Lunar New Year.

40:30Alice Han:Thank you for listening to China Decode. This is a production of Prof G Media. Our producers are David Toledo, Eric Janikas and Ness Smith-Savadoff. Thank you to Catherine Dillon, Drew Burrows, Billy Bennett, Dan Chalant, William Flynn, Jesse Milwood, Gil Espinosa, James Patton and Isabel Kinsel for production help every week. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Talk to you again next week.

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