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The “lying flat” movement in the Communist China?

It’s one of those problems that really aren’t unique to China as much as they are a ‘sign of the times’ — the lying flat ‘movement’ is simply the Chinese version of Japan’s “hikikomori” or America’s “men going their own way”. Just a group of young men who… had enough of the rat race. And decided to opt out of it entirely.

It happens in America, too. In Taiwan. In the European Union, really, anywhere. Housing prices are too damn high. Costs of living ever-increasing. Add to this rather the increasingly high demands of parents and potential spouses ‘demanding’ a certain type of lifestyle, a certain type of status… and you’re screwed. You have to be a certain height, you have to be physically fit, drive a nice car, have a nice degree. You have to make bank, you have to be able to travel frequently. You need to have kids, and you need to get them, too, into the best schools. So they may one day wear the same nice clothes, drive the same nice cars, impress the same materialistic girls and their greedy relatives…

And you just, can’t. Anymore. You can’t always get the finest grades, always get the finest jobs. You cannot always look your best, always be your best. You’re exhausted. You can’t keep up with society, you can’t keep up with your parents. Your parents are only children. So are you. You have to take care of them, and their parents. And your wife’s parents. And her grandparents. You want to be the perfect son. The perfect grandson. The perfect… whatever-they-want-you-to-be. Need you to be. But how on earth do you find the time? Where do you find it? How do you manage it?

Well chances are, you don’t. You can’t. You slowly but surely lose the interest, the drive, to compete. The overtime kills you. The whole rat race kills you. Now they want you to marry, too? Have at least two kids because the birth rate is too low? Give your wife the finest things, give your children the finest clothes, the nicest toys, and get them the best education money can buy? My goodness, the pressure is insane. And to fold under that pressure, to break down, or give up, is judged. Harshly. You have “man up”. Make your parents proud. Do the ‘right thing’. Always.

In ‘the olden days’ a man might have his first mental breakdown by the time he reached middle age. Now young men are burned out and depressed in their twenties already… and some of them just simply, give up. And no one, not the American, not the Japanese nor even the all-powerful Chinese government can really do a damn thing about it.