Beijing-based
Alec Ash has just published Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China (Picador)
a vivid account of young people in China – people born after Mao, with no memory
of Tiananmen – seen through the lens of six millennials’ lives. Dahai is
a military child and netizen; Fred is a daughter of the Party. Lucifer is an
aspiring superstar; Snail a country migrant addicted to online games. Xiaoxiao
is a hipster from the freezing north; Mia a rebel from Xinjiang in the far
west. They are the
offspring of the one-child policy, and they face fierce competition to succeed:
pressure starts young; their road isn't easy. Through their stories, Wish
Lanterns shows with empathy and insight the challenges and dreams that
will define China's future – but at the same time their stories are those of
young people all over the world. They are moving out of home, starting careers, falling
in love...
My
interest in young people in China started when I was one of them. It was the
Olympic summer of 2008, and all eyes were on Beijing. I had recently graduated
from university in my native England, and I was now at Peking University,
learning Mandarin like so many other young foreigners looking for something to
do with themselves. But while the world’s press was talking about the Olympics
and whether it signalled any change in China, I was more fascinated by my
Chinese peers and the generational changes that they embodied.
These
young Chinese, of my own age, were the first post-Tiananmen generation, with no
memory of China before the crackdown that set the tone for the decades to
follow. They had no idea of the Mao era beyond what little their parents had
told them about it, and it felt like they were divorced from history. Instead,
they were natives of a rising and newly confident China that, like them, was
still developing at a rapid pace. As such, I felt they were the ones who would
be most impactful on China’s future.
To
chronicle some of their stories I started a blog, called Six, in
which I followed six of my peers – mostly students, and several of them my
language partners, as well as an environmentalist and an entrepreneur – over
the course of two years. Little did I know that the germ planted in that blog
would eventually grow into a book, following a different selection of people
but with the same philosophy: to show the broader currents of young Chinese
society through the narrow lens of individual lives.
In Wish
Lanterns I follow six people born between 1985 and 1990. There’s
Lucifer, an aspiring superstar who plays rock music and goes on reality TV in
the quest for fame. There’s Snail, a migrant from the countryside who gets
addicted to online gaming. There’s Fred, the daughter of a Communist Party
official from the southern tropical island of Hainan; and Mia, a fashionista
and rebel from Xinjiang in the far west. And there’s a love story with a flash
marriage, although I won’t ruin the surprise by saying who.
Separately
they have their own winding narratives, their ups and downs. Together, they
hint at a larger story with much wider implications. The story of a generation
caught between the conservative mores of twentieth century China and the new
age that they usher in. A generation with aspirations their parents could never
have dreamed of, even if their environment makes it hard to fulfil those hopes.
A digital-native generation, whose attitudes have been transformed by new
technologies.
The
problem with making big statements about China is that you can immediately think
of ten examples to suggest the opposite. But discrete lives can form a mosaic
of something larger – and what is a new generation if not a different crowd of
single individuals? The English poet William Blake once said: “To generalise is
to be an idiot.” Sometimes the best thing is to find stories, then get out of
the way and tell them.
