So many words but no mention of Laying Flat? Korea: Sampo - giving up on courtship, marriage, and having kids Japan - satori generation : "young Japanese who have seemingly achieved the Buddhist...
Exemplary
about 44% of young urban women respondents said they do not plan to marry, with many citing anxieties over the financial costs of raising a family.
So many words but no mention of Laying Flat?
Korea: Sampo - giving up on courtship, marriage, and having kids
Japan - satori generation : "young Japanese who have seemingly achieved the Buddhist enlightened state free from material desires but who have in reality given up ambition and hope due to macro-economic trends."
And China's Lay Flat, with common 6 common tenets of not buying a flat, not buying a car, not marrying, not having kids, not spending money. (不買房、不買車、不結婚、不生娃、不消費). A more common three tenet format is not getting married, having kids, nor buying a flat. [Note that a flat is like an apartment or condo unit, meaning all real estate, and is not related to the "flat", the body posture, in laying flat.]
What all of these, as well as "acting my wage" in North America, have in common is that young people are fed up and can clearly see that the game is rigged, and refusing to participate. Runaway capitalism has sucked all the possible wealth from their generation up and they can recognize a losers' game of monopoly when they see it.
If any country wants to see more kids and more participation, they gotta stop it with the wage theft and the squeezing of the middle class and the ridiculously unaffordable housing crises.
What I particularly love about lay flat is this idiom: "a chive lying flat is difficult to reap" (躺平的韭菜不好割. If young people can clearly see the relationship between them and the state is one of merely a vegetable cash crop waiting to be harvested, then the best way forward is to make the harvest as difficult as possible.
And anyway the parents-apps are far less darkly hilarious dystopian than the meat space version with black on white papers everywhere like some sort of huge disaster happened and they're looking for lost children. In this case they're looking for lost grandchildren caught up in bad economic storms I guess. the video is fairly surreal too (https://youtu.be/8cFRxH0oTAA)
I went to the Shanghai market! I was visiting a friend and we happened to be in the neighborhood, and his explanation of the phenomenon was intriguing. So we grabbed some ice cream, I hiked up my...
I went to the Shanghai market! I was visiting a friend and we happened to be in the neighborhood, and his explanation of the phenomenon was intriguing. So we grabbed some ice cream, I hiked up my shirt in Asian air conditioning style, and perused the market.
Parents were covering their displays and turning away as we walked through. So many dirty looks. It was delicious.
That's hilarious!!! Why were they reacting that way? You don't look "traditional" enough for their liking? I would take that as an honour to "fail" their requirements
That's hilarious!!! Why were they reacting that way? You don't look "traditional" enough for their liking? I would take that as an honour to "fail" their requirements
Whoa hold up there. Sounds to me like you're not considering the shareholders
If any country wants to see more kids and more participation, they gotta stop it with the wage theft and the squeezing of the middle class and the ridiculously unaffordable housing crises.
Whoa hold up there. Sounds to me like you're not considering the shareholders
Ah lovely, so Chinese parents are being gold diggers for their kids. I have to admit, the one-child thing was bound to cause issues when it came to dating and marriage. But I'm not sure that I saw...
Compared with dating apps targeting young people, like Tinder (which is blocked in China,) or Momo, China’s largest dating platform, the new parent-facing matchmaking apps place greater emphasis on users’ finances. Information such as salary range, car and property ownership, and workplace (state or private sector) are prominently displayed on user profiles.
Ah lovely, so Chinese parents are being gold diggers for their kids. I have to admit, the one-child thing was bound to cause issues when it came to dating and marriage. But I'm not sure that I saw this coming.
That sounds like an uncharitable take. Financial considerations are inevitable when there is not enough money to thrive or subsist. Choice in relationships is a privilege of the wealthy.
That sounds like an uncharitable take. Financial considerations are inevitable when there is not enough money to thrive or subsist. Choice in relationships is a privilege of the wealthy.
"Love marriages" as the standard model for coupling is a heavily culturally determined preference. Arranged marriage norms aren't really frowned upon in many cultures and they're not really...
"Love marriages" as the standard model for coupling is a heavily culturally determined preference. Arranged marriage norms aren't really frowned upon in many cultures and they're not really associated with worse levels of marital satisfaction.
You've already filtered down to 3 levels of weirdness in the Indian context once you've got Christian, Keralite, Immigrants. There's also a 4th level of weirdness in that they're hanging out with...
And, yet, anecdotally of course, my numerous semi-recently immigrated Indian coworkers, all younger than 30 detest it and chose their partners in the western fashion. Granted these are all Christians from Kerala and not north Indians so perhaps there's a cultural divide there.
You've already filtered down to 3 levels of weirdness in the Indian context once you've got Christian, Keralite, Immigrants. There's also a 4th level of weirdness in that they're hanging out with White people. I know because I'm an Indian immigrant who mostly hangs out with non-Indians and had a love marriage to a White American. We're not typical, we're just vastly overrepresented within the spheres that White people operate in and, thus, end up being highly non-representative lenses into Indian lives and perspectives.
Within the Christian communities in India arranged marriage pairings are also not uncommon. And a decent amount of the "detesting" it comes largely from generational divide between parents and kids in a country where the culture has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades (a divide that didn't exist in generations past) as well a decent bit of attempting to emulate Western norms, which are viewed as "higher status). So these things aren't happening in a vacuum.
Perhaps I am biased but from what I have seen of the world I have yet to see a culture where, all else being equal, the individuals, as opposed to the culture itself, preferred and arranged marriage to the concept of marrying for "love".
All else is not equal though. There are cultures that have a fundamentally different cultural view of what a marriage is for and how to participate in one. Culture doesn't fall out of the sky, it's a gestalt construct made up of how a lot of individuals interact with each other.
To be fair I think this is because treating India as a whole is a pretty artificial construct especially when it comes to this. There are just so many different jatis (ethnoreligious groups) eg....
You've already filtered down to 3 levels of weirdness in the Indian context once you've got Christian, Keralite, Immigrants
To be fair I think this is because treating India as a whole is a pretty artificial construct especially when it comes to this. There are just so many different jatis (ethnoreligious groups) eg. among Christian Keralites (Nasrani) you'd still have the distinction between Syrian Christians (Suriani) and Roman Catholics, and among the Suriani further (though less strict) distinctions between the Syrian Catholics, Jacobites, Marthomites, Chaldeans and so forth.
Even if you just looked at more 'typical' Indian ethnoreligious groups there'd be cultural differences between someone from Nagpur and someone from Bihar.
As a Kerala Christian myself I think the general practice now seems to be if you can find someone on your own thats broadly ok, but if not you either get set up traditionally or on the apps. This...
As a Kerala Christian myself I think the general practice now seems to be if you can find someone on your own thats broadly ok, but if not you either get set up traditionally or on the apps.
This highly depends on social class as well- your co workers are, of course, likely to disproportionately be from middle/upper middle class families.
I and my wife had an arranged marriage, her sister and her husband used an app, her brother met a malayalee christian girl in the same postgrad course as him and they hit it off.
This has been pretty common in India for the past decade with apps targeting specific ethnolinguistic/ethnoreligious groups- for example, my own Malayalee ethnic group has a specific app called M...
This has been pretty common in India for the past decade with apps targeting specific ethnolinguistic/ethnoreligious groups- for example, my own Malayalee ethnic group has a specific app called M for Marry which a lot of people use. IIRC my sister-in-law first connected with her husband on that app.
The situation is a bit different from China as India never had a one-child policy, so this is just a tech-enabled extension of traditional community-based matchmaking.
India didn't have a one child policy, but until they banned doctors from informing parents of the gender before birth, sex-selective abortions were still a big problem so there is a similarly...
India didn't have a one child policy, but until they banned doctors from informing parents of the gender before birth, sex-selective abortions were still a big problem so there is a similarly severe gender disparity in some parts of the country (particularly Punjab and Haryana IIRC). Not nearly as bad as China's but still there.
Oh the preference for boys is definitely a thing and doctors still do, from what my wife has told me, hint at the sex of the foetus e.g 'Oh looks like a big strong child'
Oh the preference for boys is definitely a thing and doctors still do, from what my wife has told me, hint at the sex of the foetus e.g 'Oh looks like a big strong child'
I get being anxious about having kids in a busted economy, but not having ambitions to meet anyone for sheer companionship's sake is crazy. "I don't want to try dating anyone because I can't...
I get being anxious about having kids in a busted economy, but not having ambitions to meet anyone for sheer companionship's sake is crazy. "I don't want to try dating anyone because I can't afford children" seems nuts. Maybe you would just like a significant other to mutually support and make each other feel special. Without, you know, marrying them before you meet them even.
Little more background. Most Chinese kids are very harshly warned away against dating for the first ~20 years of their lives; you hardly even have friends in a zero sum pressure cooker where every...
Little more background. Most Chinese kids are very harshly warned away against dating for the first ~20 years of their lives; you hardly even have friends in a zero sum pressure cooker where every child is a competitor, let alone romantic and supportive partner. As a result, it's very hard to mentally transition to "companion seeking" mode.
There's also a lot of emphasis on materialistic and outward "requirements" when it comes to dating. Even these "desperate" parents in the article are demanding bachelor's degrees, minimum 175cm tall (5'9"), stable "in system" job (體制內) and most want the candidates to have flats (real estate) etc etc etc. They're very choosy despite the desperation because of how cut throat things can get.
So, many aren't so much not doing romance, as rejecting "playing the game". As far as I can tell people do date (edit "casual hookups)......they just don't.....date-date (edit serious relationship with marriage and family as end goal) because they don't want to put up with future in laws' harsh criticism
I'd also add that getting married for East Asian women is kind of a raw deal - the wife is expected to care for the husband's family as well as her husband and immediate family. As in household...
I'd also add that getting married for East Asian women is kind of a raw deal - the wife is expected to care for the husband's family as well as her husband and immediate family. As in household chores and financial support. This is my impression from seeing friends' and colleagues' marriages with Chinese and Korean husbands. My friends are pretty vocal with their complaints to me. (Please, anyone with a more direct experience of this correct me if my observation is wrong.) This could explain some of the parents' desperation in getting their sons hitched.
Ugh tell me about it. it's like inherited generational trauma times 10, no thanks. "Do unto your daughter in-law as your MIL did unto you" kinda thing. As for financial support though, there is a...
Ugh tell me about it. it's like inherited generational trauma times 10, no thanks. "Do unto your daughter in-law as your MIL did unto you" kinda thing.
As for financial support though, there is a sort of stigma against relying on the wife or the wife's family for money. There's a kind of thought that if one is too poor to support a wife one shouldn't even get married, which adds to de-motivate men from even trying to date and getting ridiculed.
How, ladies might END UP supporting a male partner regardless.....but it's not held in high esteem
I wonder if you can shed some light on a suspicion Ive had about this. The explanations for laying flat / being the last generation (1) Ive read are primarily economic, but I suspect there might...
I wonder if you can shed some light on a suspicion Ive had about this. The explanations for laying flat / being the last generation (1) Ive read are primarily economic, but I suspect there might be another - that once all other avenues of protest have been taken from a person (as they are in China as far as I’m aware) then the final protest available to a person is to not procreate. To just die without carrying on ones line. Does that sound like something that’s happening? A kind of giving up?
I'm not sure I understand, like, is this a form of protest because people don't feel free, such that even if economics are great they'd still do it? Hmmmm my impression is that generally human...
I'm not sure I understand, like, is this a form of protest because people don't feel free, such that even if economics are great they'd still do it?
Hmmmm my impression is that generally human beings don't protest or make waves or make trouble for themselves for the sake of it. I mean, if refusing to have kids is a form of protest, it is not possible to separate that refusal from economics and broader societal pain points. Freedom in the American sense is very ...... Nebulous. They never had freesom in the American sense and don't miss it probably, but they can feel the lack of "opportunities" everywhere.
eg, if the state is somehow paying women handsomely and not being stupidly sexist about things and they can see a bright future for the kids, there will be fewer people laying flat
Money isn't everything but China is perversely hyper capitalistic, so money equals choices and opportunities. Not so different from here.
It's tough to go against cultural and especially family expectation and nagging: people don't do this for simply rebellion. It's....complex rebellion? I see the common thread between North American Child Free and Chinese Lay Flat and Japanese Hikkikomori: it's young people's inability to see hope from participation in regular societal rites.
But I mean, China is a gigantic country and for every one young person refusing to marry and have kids, there's probably two that are going along with everything being just "fine".
I can't relate as an American. My brother and I are both single dads (full custody, no moms), and I don't think my parents have ever once tried to set us up on dates or lost sleep over us not...
I can't relate as an American. My brother and I are both single dads (full custody, no moms), and I don't think my parents have ever once tried to set us up on dates or lost sleep over us not having wives. Maybe if they didn't have grandchildren they'd be singing a different tune. I used to get invited on fun vacations until the existence of grandchildren, now I've been supplanted. Which is fine. I'm glad my son and nephew have experiences like their trip to Japan: https://youtu.be/5akdXLdK6Ek
America has a strong culture of individualism (for better and for worse). Parents interfering in their adult kids' lives like this would be very taboo here. This is not the case in China.
America has a strong culture of individualism (for better and for worse). Parents interfering in their adult kids' lives like this would be very taboo here. This is not the case in China.
Thanks for sharing this part of your life and the link to your channel. I got some stuff going on in my life right now and I really needed this ray of hope.
Thanks for sharing this part of your life and the link to your channel. I got some stuff going on in my life right now and I really needed this ray of hope.
Just keep having fun and enjoying all the beautiful moments with your kids! I don't see a path forward to having children in my lifetime, and it's slowly but surely eating me from the inside out....
Just keep having fun and enjoying all the beautiful moments with your kids!
I don't see a path forward to having children in my lifetime, and it's slowly but surely eating me from the inside out. I have been trying for years to fill my life with other hobbies, activities etc., but at the end of the day, this unfulfilled desire/need and its absence remains a persistent presence in all areas of my life.
I really hope you find what you’re looking for! My situation just kind of materialized. I wouldn’t know how to make it happen. So I’ll just say good luck! My son had wanted to see Ninja Turtles...
I really hope you find what you’re looking for! My situation just kind of materialized. I wouldn’t know how to make it happen. So I’ll just say good luck! My son had wanted to see Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem today, and I was on board with that, but now at the last minute he’s switched up and asked to see The Meg 2. You’ve given me some perspective, so I’m just going to roll with it.
So many words but no mention of Laying Flat?
Korea: Sampo - giving up on courtship, marriage, and having kids
Japan - satori generation : "young Japanese who have seemingly achieved the Buddhist enlightened state free from material desires but who have in reality given up ambition and hope due to macro-economic trends."
And China's Lay Flat, with common 6 common tenets of not buying a flat, not buying a car, not marrying, not having kids, not spending money. (不買房、不買車、不結婚、不生娃、不消費). A more common three tenet format is not getting married, having kids, nor buying a flat. [Note that a flat is like an apartment or condo unit, meaning all real estate, and is not related to the "flat", the body posture, in laying flat.]
What all of these, as well as "acting my wage" in North America, have in common is that young people are fed up and can clearly see that the game is rigged, and refusing to participate. Runaway capitalism has sucked all the possible wealth from their generation up and they can recognize a losers' game of monopoly when they see it.
If any country wants to see more kids and more participation, they gotta stop it with the wage theft and the squeezing of the middle class and the ridiculously unaffordable housing crises.
What I particularly love about lay flat is this idiom: "a chive lying flat is difficult to reap" (躺平的韭菜不好割. If young people can clearly see the relationship between them and the state is one of merely a vegetable cash crop waiting to be harvested, then the best way forward is to make the harvest as difficult as possible.
And anyway the parents-apps are far less darkly hilarious dystopian than the meat space version with black on white papers everywhere like some sort of huge disaster happened and they're looking for lost children. In this case they're looking for lost grandchildren caught up in bad economic storms I guess. the video is fairly surreal too (https://youtu.be/8cFRxH0oTAA)
The Shanghai one has its own wiki entry lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Marriage_Market
I went to the Shanghai market! I was visiting a friend and we happened to be in the neighborhood, and his explanation of the phenomenon was intriguing. So we grabbed some ice cream, I hiked up my shirt in Asian air conditioning style, and perused the market.
Parents were covering their displays and turning away as we walked through. So many dirty looks. It was delicious.
That's hilarious!!! Why were they reacting that way? You don't look "traditional" enough for their liking? I would take that as an honour to "fail" their requirements
Yeah, I'm a giant half breed. Definitely not their idea of an acceptable son in law!
Haha that's awesome. Though I'm surprised hapas aren't more appreciated in some countries.
Whoa hold up there. Sounds to me like you're not considering the shareholders
Ah lovely, so Chinese parents are being gold diggers for their kids. I have to admit, the one-child thing was bound to cause issues when it came to dating and marriage. But I'm not sure that I saw this coming.
That sounds like an uncharitable take. Financial considerations are inevitable when there is not enough money to thrive or subsist. Choice in relationships is a privilege of the wealthy.
I'm certainly not inclined to condone any such practices. In this particular case, I will not judge them either.
"Love marriages" as the standard model for coupling is a heavily culturally determined preference. Arranged marriage norms aren't really frowned upon in many cultures and they're not really associated with worse levels of marital satisfaction.
You've already filtered down to 3 levels of weirdness in the Indian context once you've got Christian, Keralite, Immigrants. There's also a 4th level of weirdness in that they're hanging out with White people. I know because I'm an Indian immigrant who mostly hangs out with non-Indians and had a love marriage to a White American. We're not typical, we're just vastly overrepresented within the spheres that White people operate in and, thus, end up being highly non-representative lenses into Indian lives and perspectives.
Within the Christian communities in India arranged marriage pairings are also not uncommon. And a decent amount of the "detesting" it comes largely from generational divide between parents and kids in a country where the culture has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades (a divide that didn't exist in generations past) as well a decent bit of attempting to emulate Western norms, which are viewed as "higher status). So these things aren't happening in a vacuum.
All else is not equal though. There are cultures that have a fundamentally different cultural view of what a marriage is for and how to participate in one. Culture doesn't fall out of the sky, it's a gestalt construct made up of how a lot of individuals interact with each other.
To be fair I think this is because treating India as a whole is a pretty artificial construct especially when it comes to this. There are just so many different jatis (ethnoreligious groups) eg. among Christian Keralites (Nasrani) you'd still have the distinction between Syrian Christians (Suriani) and Roman Catholics, and among the Suriani further (though less strict) distinctions between the Syrian Catholics, Jacobites, Marthomites, Chaldeans and so forth.
Even if you just looked at more 'typical' Indian ethnoreligious groups there'd be cultural differences between someone from Nagpur and someone from Bihar.
As a Kerala Christian myself I think the general practice now seems to be if you can find someone on your own thats broadly ok, but if not you either get set up traditionally or on the apps.
This highly depends on social class as well- your co workers are, of course, likely to disproportionately be from middle/upper middle class families.
I and my wife had an arranged marriage, her sister and her husband used an app, her brother met a malayalee christian girl in the same postgrad course as him and they hit it off.
This has been pretty common in India for the past decade with apps targeting specific ethnolinguistic/ethnoreligious groups- for example, my own Malayalee ethnic group has a specific app called M for Marry which a lot of people use. IIRC my sister-in-law first connected with her husband on that app.
The situation is a bit different from China as India never had a one-child policy, so this is just a tech-enabled extension of traditional community-based matchmaking.
India didn't have a one child policy, but until they banned doctors from informing parents of the gender before birth, sex-selective abortions were still a big problem so there is a similarly severe gender disparity in some parts of the country (particularly Punjab and Haryana IIRC). Not nearly as bad as China's but still there.
Oh the preference for boys is definitely a thing and doctors still do, from what my wife has told me, hint at the sex of the foetus e.g 'Oh looks like a big strong child'
I get being anxious about having kids in a busted economy, but not having ambitions to meet anyone for sheer companionship's sake is crazy. "I don't want to try dating anyone because I can't afford children" seems nuts. Maybe you would just like a significant other to mutually support and make each other feel special. Without, you know, marrying them before you meet them even.
Little more background. Most Chinese kids are very harshly warned away against dating for the first ~20 years of their lives; you hardly even have friends in a zero sum pressure cooker where every child is a competitor, let alone romantic and supportive partner. As a result, it's very hard to mentally transition to "companion seeking" mode.
There's also a lot of emphasis on materialistic and outward "requirements" when it comes to dating. Even these "desperate" parents in the article are demanding bachelor's degrees, minimum 175cm tall (5'9"), stable "in system" job (體制內) and most want the candidates to have flats (real estate) etc etc etc. They're very choosy despite the desperation because of how cut throat things can get.
So, many aren't so much not doing romance, as rejecting "playing the game". As far as I can tell people do date (edit "casual hookups)......they just don't.....date-date (edit serious relationship with marriage and family as end goal) because they don't want to put up with future in laws' harsh criticism
I'd also add that getting married for East Asian women is kind of a raw deal - the wife is expected to care for the husband's family as well as her husband and immediate family. As in household chores and financial support. This is my impression from seeing friends' and colleagues' marriages with Chinese and Korean husbands. My friends are pretty vocal with their complaints to me. (Please, anyone with a more direct experience of this correct me if my observation is wrong.) This could explain some of the parents' desperation in getting their sons hitched.
Ugh tell me about it. it's like inherited generational trauma times 10, no thanks. "Do unto your daughter in-law as your MIL did unto you" kinda thing.
As for financial support though, there is a sort of stigma against relying on the wife or the wife's family for money. There's a kind of thought that if one is too poor to support a wife one shouldn't even get married, which adds to de-motivate men from even trying to date and getting ridiculed.
How, ladies might END UP supporting a male partner regardless.....but it's not held in high esteem
I wonder if you can shed some light on a suspicion Ive had about this. The explanations for laying flat / being the last generation (1) Ive read are primarily economic, but I suspect there might be another - that once all other avenues of protest have been taken from a person (as they are in China as far as I’m aware) then the final protest available to a person is to not procreate. To just die without carrying on ones line. Does that sound like something that’s happening? A kind of giving up?
1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/the-last-generation-young-chinese-people-vow-not-to-have-children
I'm not sure I understand, like, is this a form of protest because people don't feel free, such that even if economics are great they'd still do it?
Hmmmm my impression is that generally human beings don't protest or make waves or make trouble for themselves for the sake of it. I mean, if refusing to have kids is a form of protest, it is not possible to separate that refusal from economics and broader societal pain points. Freedom in the American sense is very ...... Nebulous. They never had freesom in the American sense and don't miss it probably, but they can feel the lack of "opportunities" everywhere.
eg, if the state is somehow paying women handsomely and not being stupidly sexist about things and they can see a bright future for the kids, there will be fewer people laying flat
Money isn't everything but China is perversely hyper capitalistic, so money equals choices and opportunities. Not so different from here.
It's tough to go against cultural and especially family expectation and nagging: people don't do this for simply rebellion. It's....complex rebellion? I see the common thread between North American Child Free and Chinese Lay Flat and Japanese Hikkikomori: it's young people's inability to see hope from participation in regular societal rites.
But I mean, China is a gigantic country and for every one young person refusing to marry and have kids, there's probably two that are going along with everything being just "fine".
I can't relate as an American. My brother and I are both single dads (full custody, no moms), and I don't think my parents have ever once tried to set us up on dates or lost sleep over us not having wives. Maybe if they didn't have grandchildren they'd be singing a different tune. I used to get invited on fun vacations until the existence of grandchildren, now I've been supplanted. Which is fine. I'm glad my son and nephew have experiences like their trip to Japan: https://youtu.be/5akdXLdK6Ek
America has a strong culture of individualism (for better and for worse). Parents interfering in their adult kids' lives like this would be very taboo here. This is not the case in China.
Thanks for sharing this part of your life and the link to your channel. I got some stuff going on in my life right now and I really needed this ray of hope.
You're welcome! You sound very kind. Anything we can help you with? Life is a LOT right now. You aren't alone!
Just keep having fun and enjoying all the beautiful moments with your kids!
I don't see a path forward to having children in my lifetime, and it's slowly but surely eating me from the inside out. I have been trying for years to fill my life with other hobbies, activities etc., but at the end of the day, this unfulfilled desire/need and its absence remains a persistent presence in all areas of my life.
I really hope you find what you’re looking for! My situation just kind of materialized. I wouldn’t know how to make it happen. So I’ll just say good luck! My son had wanted to see Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem today, and I was on board with that, but now at the last minute he’s switched up and asked to see The Meg 2. You’ve given me some perspective, so I’m just going to roll with it.