福二代 | Kids These Days ...

In China, our generation is known as the 福二代, which translates to "rich second generation". The title refers to declining status of the youth - poor academic performance, tendency to act recklessly and irresponsibly, plain 'weirdness', and above all, disregard for traditional values, usually surrounding Confucian ideals such as filial piety and humility. Mostly you hear stories of 福二代 buying fancy cars and then getting into car accidents, or splurging ludicrous sums of money at night clubs and bars. Even more infamous are the inheritors of parents' fortunes in the form of assets and companies, only to bankrupt their own businesses within a year of ownership. The central dogma surrounding 福二代 is that the Chinese youth of today were brought up in a pampered lifestyle of luxury, reaching the highest standards of living simply by being born - without the trial and hardship that our parents suffered through to reach such a status, we kids are essentially incapable and above all else, spoiled. In the same token, we can never live up to the achievements of our parents.

When Deng Xiao Ping seized power from Mao and opened China's borders (and economy) to Western influence, he gave birth to a new form of the Chinese dream. Education became a surefire way to escape the abject poverty that ravaged post-cultural revolution China. If one studied hard enough, there were scholarships to be obtained abroad, after which students could return to China, equipped with fancy degrees in law and medicine and business and form the vanguard of the economic surge that inevitably followed.

That's what my dad and mom (and most other dads and moms) did. At my age, my dad was literally a peasant - like LITERALLY a peasant. My entire family on my father's side lived in a tiny mud shack (it was washed away by a river flood some decades ago) in the wetlands of Ningbo, China. He had to balance life as a student with the rigors of being a full time farmhand, but eventually earned a place at Oxford, in England. He returned to China as a successful lawyer and started our family in Hong Kong. By the time I was born, we were a few years short of abandoning our apartment in the crowded city and moving to the suburbs of Beijing.

This is a story that will sound familiar to a lot of international students from China - especially those from the mainland. Although cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong are considered some of the most well developed metropolises today, it's hard to imagine the history of culture that emerged around them in the past few decades. 福二代 are the first generation to grow up in this 'New China' (now going to connect to OSAFS). It is the generation that reaped the benefits of others' labors, and as a result, has collectively resulted in an overall decline of social caliber. It's a generation that has never experience true hardship or suffering, and is thus 'weak'. Ultimately, 福二代 such as myself have the bar set high - our achievements and indeed, entire lives, are lived out on the shoulders of the giants who birthed us.

Okay, I'm sharing this piece of history because it's scary how contemporary social and historical themes are so well threaded in OSAFS. When Quig's charter friend is describing the failing generation of youth, all I could think about was my own privilege in being born as the equivalent of a charter kid. When the narrator described the citizens of Senecca wearing special clothes and exercising out doors, my mind immediately jumped to my dad making fun of me for going to the gym - 'back in my day, all I had to do to stay fit was hard, manual labor for twelve hours a day (he spent the other twelve doing his homework and getting ahead on his studies, I'm sure). Seriously, OSAFS is quite the experience - I see so much of today's world described in the novel - if anything, it's scary to think that our society could so easily be compared to such a 'dystopian' future. I'd write more but honestly I'm pretty rattled by the self-reflection this book is forcing me to undergo so I'll sign off here.