Author, Wang Fan
Posted 7 minutes ago
Reading time: 4 minutes
"A star falling from the sky," is how Zihan Han describes a man she has recently become madly infatuated with, whom young Chinese people call their "idol."
But this man is not a pop singer or a movie star, but a 54-year-old anthropologist. Professor Xiang Biao unexpectedly became the guide for an increasingly confused generation.
The reason lies in the subject he talks about: anxiety, and how to deal with it.
China's economy and technology are developing at an alarming rate, but there are still many things that trouble Generation Z (Gen Z), from employment to marriage prospects to the huge pressure to keep up with the times.
"Today, moving from school to real society brings a lot of uncertainty, and people often feel anxious because they don't know how to face it," said a 23-year-old Chinese graduate. She declined to give her name because she was worried that being interviewed by foreign media might affect her chances of finding a job back home.
"People need an anchor in their lives. And his words make us feel that there is someone in this world who understands us."
She and Zihan were among about 500 people, mostly overseas Chinese, who crowded into an auditorium in Singapore recently. Xiang Biao spoke in Mandarin for more than an hour and then answered questions. After the event, dozens of people lined up to meet and take photos with him. The Chinese graduate called it "an academic fan meeting."
Xiang Biao has received exclusive interviews from major Chinese media and lectured at many top universities in China, including his alma mater, the famous Peking University. A speech earlier this year was webcast because the auditorium was packed. According to Chinese media reports, "When in doubt, ask Xiang Biao" has become a popular saying.
In Singapore, Xiang Biao talked about the recognition that young people in China today seek—they often look to institutions for affirmation, from competitive exams to stable jobs—and how that affirmation has become an exhausting and painful measure of self-worth.
A healthier approach, he believes, is to seek meaning and understanding from others and thereby better understand oneself.
These are not immediate solutions. But in a country where dissatisfaction can be politically sensitive and subject to intense scrutiny, he is a rare public figure confronting what he calls "the pain points of the times."
"Everyone knows what the problem is, but they don't want to face it. Sometimes it's because it's too painful, sometimes there's no solution," he told the BBC over tea in Singapore.
"But as an academic, if you can describe it, it's not scary. That's the way to analyze and manage it."
He currently lives in Germany and serves as director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, where he studies social changes in China and other parts of Asia.
Xiang Biao believes that Chinese society is at a "turning point". While people are understanding the rapid social and economic changes, they are also looking for the meaning of life. He saw the contradictions: young people feeling lost in a strong and confident country; disillusionment despite great progress; and his job, he said, was to unpack the driving forces behind it.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping acknowledges this: the "main contradiction", he says, is "the contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development."
Xiang Biao came up with some catchy names for the causes of this phenomenon. He used "levitation" to describe those who work desperately just to survive, just like a hummingbird that must keep flapping its wings to stay in mid-air.
"Nearby" refers to things that are close to us. Xiang Biao believes that people only pay attention to the "extremely near" (themselves) and the "extremely far" (the world), while the space in between - the "nearby" - is ignored. It makes people feel disconnected, he said.
These ideas seemed to strike a deep chord with young people who were looking for answers.
One user on RedNote wrote: "He always looks at problems from the perspective of the disadvantaged, attributes personal stress to macro-level causes, and encourages people to be active in life - which is really awesome."
Another user said: "He never talks about empty chicken soup for the soul; instead, he squats down and faces the difficulties of real life with us."
Zihan said that the key is Xiang Biao's willingness to talk about these things openly: "People who have said similar things are not as powerful as Teacher Xiang, and no one who is as powerful as him has said these things."
Xiang Biao was born in 1972 and grew up at another turning point. At the time, China was emerging from the brutal turmoil of the Mao Zedong years and began to trade with the world. In this communist country, urbanization has advanced, ordinary people have turned into entrepreneurs, and enterprises of all types have flourished for the first time.
Xiang Biao grew up in Wenzhou, a city that became an industrial port, and he saw it all firsthand. “It was a huge world for small business owners,” he recalls. "Most people don't care much about education. The focus is on practical things. Specifically, how to make money."
And many of them do make money. Their children grew up in the glory days of double-digit economic growth. But the economy slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic and has so far failed to rebound. The old equation - hard work equals stable job - no longer holds true, and young people want a new narrative, Xiang Biao said.
The youth unemployment rate once reached 21.3%, and the government stopped publishing relevant data in mid-2023. Those who have "good jobs", such as civil servants, corporate employees, engineers, etc., are also anxious about losing their jobs.
They complain online about long and grueling working hours, toxic office culture and fears of the "35 curse" - the upper age limit set by job ads that makes it harder to find a new job.
Due to censorship, it's difficult to figure out the true extent of this sentiment. But this sense of being squeezed seeps into public discourse in other ways. This anxiety quickly turned into anger in online debates, whether about college entrance examinations, bride price, or food safety scandals.
Words associated with this sentiment have remained popular for years. The most famous are "flattening," which refers to people withdrawing from the fierce competition completely, and "involution," a slightly awkward term now widely used to describe intense competition that produces few meaningful rewards.
Xiang Biao believes that two forces amplify this anxiety: the real estate market and the higher education system. Driven by local governments' reliance on land sales, the real estate boom has tied families' sense of security and success to property values. And the rapid expansion of college enrollment has raised the bar for achievement and intensified competition.
Eventually, he said, there was a universal playbook that everyone followed: Get a good degree, get a stable job, get married, buy a house.
"If someone calls me an Internet celebrity, I will take it as a compliment. Because the real impact I can have is to make people learn to think independently."
