Category: Middle East

As China copes with widespread youth unemployment and a flagging economy, a song about lying down, dropping out and burning incense in the hope of magically getting rich has become a viral sensation on social media. The jaunty pop hit by singer Li Ermeng titled, “I can’t afford to worship in the Temple of Wealth,” has been dubbed the “lying flat” song in a reference to a passive attitude reportedly adopted by Generation Z in China in the face of an increasingly harsh economic climate. “Lying flat,” also translated as “lying down,” is a buzzword that concerns the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which has targeted online content linked to the idea and played down dire youth unemployment figures, insisting that young people get less picky about the jobs they will do and show a more positive attitude. “They’d understand what I’m suffering in the temple,” the song begins after a shrill alarm clock sound effect. “I’d rather rely on Buddha than on hard work.” “I burned three yuan worth of incense today and wished for 3 hundred million,” Li sings. “The rest, I’ll leave up to fate.” “From here on out, I’ll play the lottery instead of going to the temple,” run the lyrics to the song, which had spawned hundreds of copy-cat cover versions on Douyin, China’s version of Tik Tok, complete with its own hand-gesture dance, according to a keyword search on Tuesday. “By day I draw career plans, by night I dream of marriage,” the song goes on.  “My boss counts his money while I get to eat different flavors of instant ramen,” it says, adding: “Not having love is OK, but not having no money really doesn’t work.”  Rejecting traditional milestones Social media comments linked the song to the current economic climate, which means hard times for China’s young people, who have coined the term “political depression” to refer to their sense of hopelessness, and who are increasingly rejecting traditional milestones like finding a job, marriage and children. “Times are getting harder every year, it’s harder and harder to make money, and prices just get higher and higher,” wrote Zhihu user @too_late. “People living at the bottom [of the economic ladder] are finding it harder every day.” According to X user @powershitly, “lying flat is a form of nonviolent resistance among young people in China.” “There’s no crime in being a Buddhist, and it’s rational to lie flat!” the user wrote on a post about the song. X user @Sofigoodboy agreed, adding: “This is the sad reality of the younger generation.” People offer prayers at Yonghe Temple, popularly known as Lama Temple, in Beijing in 2022. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP Social media influencer Chia-Paō Lee, who grew up in China but is now based in Taiwan, said students in China are taught that they will get a good job after graduation if they study hard, and yet jobs are now very hard to come by at all. “One very important reason for the prevalence of lying flat culture is that no matter how hard you work, you can’t live a good life,” Lee told Radio Free Asia. The last official youth unemployment rate released in July showed that around one in five young people in China is struggling to find a job. And that figure – last reported at 21.3% – may just be the tip of the iceberg. The hidden employed Associate professor Zhang Dandan of Peking University says the true figure could be as high as 46.5%, if young people currently not looking for work and living in their parental home are taken into account. According to a blog post by “Internet Diver” on Sina.com, many more young people are hidden from statistical indicators of unemployment because they have signed up for graduate degrees, or are taking time out to prepare for civil service examinations. A young man and woman talk to a recruiter as they seek employment at a job fair on June 9, 2023 in Beijing, Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Chien-chung Wu, associate professor in general education at the Taipei University of Maritime Technology, said the ruling Chinese Communist Party has yet to come up with an effective economic policy to stimulate growth. “Young people can’t see a future, and they can’t see any hope,” Wu said. “The so-called magic weapon has had no effect in boosting the economy, regardless of how many shots in the arm they give.” Meanwhile, the government keeps up its “positive” propaganda about young people, quoting President Xi Jinping as saying that young people should “shoulder important responsibilities in the new era.” “The majority of young people are meeting the needs of their country by shouldering their responsibilities and have courage to forge ahead, using hard work as their momentum for innovation,” state broadcaster CCTV said in a report aired on Oct. 2. “[They are] singing the song of the youth in the New Era,” the report said, alongside footage of Xi visiting the elite Harbin Engineering University in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in September, and featuring students from Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s school of oceanography carrying out research in the Arctic. “On an expedition for glory and dreams, Chinese youth in the New Era are running hard along the track of youth, using the power and creativity of youth to stir up a surge of national rejuvenation, and using the wisdom and sweat of youth to build a better China!” the report said. Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Climate change is having an impact on the ancient art of tea-growing, as a long dry spell has left high-end crops across the region parched and yellow amid dwindling supply, according to agricultural experts and tea connoisseurs. China’s traditional tea-making techniques and customs were included in UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list last year — at a time when the perfect cup of tea is getting harder and harder to find. The 8th century “Classic of Tea” by Lu Yu tells growers: “Make tea by looking at the weather. Make tea by looking at the tea.” Yet extreme weather that swings between drought and floods is creating hardships for the region’s tea-growers, who have a similar appreciation for the different kinds of leaf and the environments in which they’re grown to connoisseurs of fine wines. “Last year we had very dry weather, and so this year’s Longjing [Dragon’s Well] tea crop has been severely reduced,” Chinese tea expert Zhang Qin told Radio Free Asia’s Green Intelligence column. She blamed the lower yields on a lack of water supplied to the tea-growing areas around Xihu in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. “It’s mainly because some of the tea-bushes have seen damage to their roots, and a small number of bushes have died,” Zhang said. Water evaporates Similar woes have beset tea-growing regions of China’s southeastern province of Fujian, according to Tsai Yu-hsin of the 186-year-old Taiwanese tea company Legacy Formosa, who said he had seen the effects with his own eyes. “When there are such high temperatures and drought, all the water in the tea bushes evaporates,” Tsai said. “If there’s a wind, then even more water is lost, so the tea bushes will turn yellow.” “Water is as important to tea-bushes as it is to humans,” Tsai said. “The tighter the water supply, the worse the disaster for the tea gardens.” A woman plucks tea leaves in Moganshan, Zhejiang province. Extreme weather, such as drought or heavy rainfall, is detrimental to the growth of tea trees, causing tea buds to germinate slowly and become smaller Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters Tsai said he had seen leaves grown for the Wu Yi Rock Tea variety and white tea start to wither and turn yellow on the bush. He said similar problems have been seen in tea-growing areas of Taiwan’s Nantou, across the Taiwan Strait from Fujian. Plunging yields Tea yields in China, the world’s biggest producer of tea, and Taiwan, which serves a smaller but highly discerning tea-drinking public, saw the lowest levels of rainfall in 30 years last year. Overall tea production in China looks set to fall by around 15% this year as a result, according to industry associations, with falls of 40% in the central province of Henan, and of 30% in Fujian. In Taiwan, yields are down in the Chiayi tea-growing region by more than 50%, with other areas seeing falls of 20 to 30%, according to Chiu Chui-fung, a Ministry of Agriculture official who works on improving tea yields. And drought doesn’t just affect the amount of tea that can be harvested — it changes the quality of the tea that is available, he said. Drought-struck bushes will bear leaves with less sugars, polyphenols, amino acids and caffeine, which affects the taste and smell, Chiu said. Health-giving catechins are also reduced by around 50% in times of drought, according to a flavor study by researchers at Montana State University. Tea bushes like temperatures ranging between 18 and 25 Celsius, with annual rainfall of 1800-3000 mm, and a relative humidity of 75-80%, according to Chiu. Students learn how to hand-roll tea at a training workshop at the Tea Research and Extension Station in Nantou, Taiwan. Drought followed by torrential rains have decimated tea crops. Extreme weather exacerbated by climate change has left Taiwan’s tea farmers scrambling to adapt. Credit: Ann Wang/Reuters Rising temperatures While harvesting takes place several times a year, the spring harvest yields the most, he said. There are signs that fewer and fewer regions are now meeting all of those criteria, according to Zhang Qin. “Tea farmers in Yunnan [in the Mekong River basin] are saying that temperatures are getting higher and higher every year in recent years,” she said. And specialized teas like White Silver Needle Orange Pekoe or Oolong Rock Tea are more sensitive to changes in the environment than cheaper teas for daily consumption. “Without enough water, Silver Needle Pekoe won’t be able to open its leaves, and the quantity will decrease,” Tsai said. “Climate change is damaging a lot of tea bushes, and fewer of the most refined and high-quality leaves are being harvested, which means the price will be significantly [higher].” The EU-funded climate monitoring agency “Copernicus Climate Change Service” announced in August that July 2023 was the hottest month on Earth on record. Last month, China’s Climate Change Blue Book for 2023 showed an average temperature increase of 0.16C every 10 years between 1901 and 2022. The Meteorological Administration also reported record-breaking high temperatures at 366 weather stations around the country during 2022. Weather extremes Taiwan has seen similar increases over the past century, too. And record-breaking heavy rains dumped by increasingly frequent and powerful typhoons and rainstorms may not help tea-growers much. Too much rain means the soil is waterlogged, cutting off the supply of oxygen in the soil, and affecting respiration and absorption, Chiu said. The result is slower-growing tea and declining yields and quality. Extreme weather also means more pests that threaten tea crops, including red spider-mites, thrips and other insects. Zhang, who receives samples of tea from growers across the region every year, says there are already noticeable changes in the way the best teas taste. There is a black tea from Yunnan called Golden Silk Dianhong with “slight caramel and floral aroma, with a rich taste,” Zhang said. “It has always been very popular with consumers, but it doesn’t taste the way it once did when I have drunk it in recent years.” Elusive…