Tang Ping, Soshoku danshi, and opting out of the rat race.

I heard about the phenomena of "herbivore men" or soshoku danshi in Japan. These may be otaku who decide that sex and relationships are just too complicated. Or, more positively, they are the Satori Generation, who have "achieved the Buddhist enlightened state free from material desires".

I did not realise that this phenomena is also present in Hong Kong.

In Korea, there is the Sampo Generation. And the Strawberry Generation in Taiwan.

And in China, some men (and maybe women too?) have decided that in the face of unrelenting social and economic pressure to succeed, and the irrepressible rat race and work pressure, the best resistance, is to "lie flat" (tang ping). 

Japan. Hong Kong. Korea. Taiwan. And now China.

Is Singapore next?

I can understand this reactionary counter to the unrelenting rat race. 

When everything tells you that you need to succeed, that you need to be more, that you need to have more, and you are worth nothing unless you are worth something, it is natural to ask if this is all there is to life.

And if there might be more to life than running the unending rat race.

And you might just tell yourself that there is an alternative.

Refuse to run the rat race. 

You are after all, more than a rat.

A more positive response to the rat race is to try to beat the rat race. 

With FIRE.

FIRE is the philosophy of achieving Financial Independence (F.I.) so one can Retire Early (R.E.). Those attempting to achieve FIRE, would focus on spending as little as possible, in order build up one's retirement savings, so one can retire early, say at 30, or 40. 

But China's modal income is something like 1000 RMB per month (for about 600 million Chinese), and the cost of living is about 800 RMB per month, which means trying to achieve FIRE would be very difficult.

So "lying flat" is understandable.

When nothing you do matters, maybe all that matters is that you do nothing.

The Tao has this advice:

The Way never Acts,

Yet Nothing is left undone.

This is Wu Wei:

Well, that's a positive spin on things.

The idea that one does nothing, but one has a wider strategy, and refrains from futile tactical manoeuvrings while keeping an eye on the wider picture and the longer term goal, so that at all times, "one goes with the flow". But chooses to flow with some idea of getting somewhere?

Maybe.

Or maybe it is despondence-fuelled nihilism.

Only time, and the next generation can tell.