Perched up against the edge of a cliff in China\u2019s southwest Guizhou province is the bamboo shack 21-year-old \u201cretiree\u201d Liu Youwen built from scratch. <\/p>\n
Three years ago, Liu left his rural hometown Xiaxixiang, Guizhou, for the city of Shantou in Guangdong, China\u2019s richest province, joining a decades-long nationwide migration of workers from the countryside that has fueled the country\u2019s enormous growth and created some of the world\u2019s largest megacities. <\/p>\n
But as a junior high dropout, it was tough for Liu to find a job. He said he was turned down by many factories due to his lack of credentials, before eventually finding work as a car mechanic, then a construction worker, and finally at a clothing factory. <\/p>\n
Disillusioned by the grind of city life, at the end of 2022 he decided to call it quits and return to the rolling hills and rivers of Guizhou. Liu\u2019s parents and older brother protested the move \u2013 but he wanted a \u201csimple life,\u201d he said, and to escape the high-pressure rat race. <\/p>\n
Liu\u2019s frustrations reflect a growing sense of disenchantment among young people in China, many of whom face a dire job market, burnout after years of grueling academic and work pressure, plus the traumatic impact of the country\u2019s draconian former pandemic policies. <\/p>\n
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China\u2019s youth unemployment rate in cities and towns hit a record-high 21.3% in June \u2013 before the government stopped releasing the uncomfortable data. <\/p>\n
In response, authorities have encouraged urban youth to head to the countryside instead \u2013 a controversial proposal. <\/p>\n
Last December, Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged young people to make the move to \u201crevitalize the rural economy,\u201d a call that has drawn comparisons with a previous campaign launched decades ago by former leader Mao Zedong in which tens of millions of urban youths were effectively exiled to remote areas. <\/p>\n
Xi was himself a member of the \u201csent-down youth\u201d and has depicted his time in rural central China as a rewarding, life-changing experience that toughened his body and mind. <\/p>\n
The entire village where the leader once lived has been turned into a Communist shrine dedicated to him, attracting officials and tourists from across the country. <\/p>\n
Authorities in Guangdong, one of China\u2019s most densely populated provinces and a major factory hub, said earlier this year they hope to send 300,000 unemployed young people to the countryside to find work. <\/p>\n
Living in the mountains has its challenges, as Liu discovered. <\/p>\n
At first, his parents worried about his safety, being alone in the woods, so they installed CCTV around the area to keep tabs on him. <\/p>\n
Then, to solve the problem of no electricity, Liu installed numerous solar panels around the shack. <\/p>\n
But he has also found an unconventional path to success \u2013 and a starkly different one than the farm work and blue-collar jobs Chinese authorities have encouraged urban youth to seek out. <\/p>\n
Inspired by Chinese vlogger and influencer Li Ziqi, whose videos about life in rural China have earned her 18 million subscribers on YouTube, Liu now uploads weekly vlogs of his days in the mountains. <\/p>\n
And he isn\u2019t alone. Dianxi Xiaoge, another Chinese food vlogger, teaches her more than 10 million YouTube subscribers how to cook healthy food from a village in southwest Yunnan province. Another pair of Gen Z \u201cretirees,\u201d Xiao Chun Zi and Xin Xin\u2019s Rural Life from Sichuan province, also post content similar to Liu\u2019s. <\/p>\n
YouTube is among a number of social media sites behind China\u2019s Great Firewall, meaning it isn\u2019t accessible to most people in the country. <\/p>\n
Liu\u2019s videos range from him building a pig pen to his interactions with his furry companions, two dogs named Lucky and Flower.\u00a0Armed with just a phone and a tripod, his one-man production begins as he works in the field to grow vegetables such as Chinese cabbage and garlic, and as he prepares mashed up sweet potatoes and ragweed for his piglets. <\/p>\n
He says he never feels lonely, with access to a television and his animals keeping him company. Since September, he has quickly garnered attention online, with more than 350,000 likes combined across his social media accounts. <\/p>\n
Some online users voiced admiration, with one commenting: \u201cHe clearly knows what he\u2019s doing, has a healthy lifestyle, unlike some other Gen Z\u2019ers who are addicted to video games.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another lamented, \u201cThe 00\u2019s are starting to retire, what about those of us born in the 80s?\u201d \u2013 referring to Liu\u2019s \u201cretirement\u201d from the traditional workforce at just 21 years old. <\/p>\n
However, some were more skeptical, \u201cDo you have nothing to do at home? Doing all this meaningless stuff and \u2018lying flat\u2019?\u201d a commenter wrote. <\/p>\n
The \u201clying flat\u201d movement \u2013 \u201ctangping\u201d in Chinese \u2013 exploded in popularity among young people in 2021, calling on them to reject social pressures to work hard, get married, have children and buy property. <\/p>\n
Instead of endlessly laboring toward those traditional goals \u2013 which many now say offer diminishing returns \u2013 people should pursue a simple life, the philosophy suggests. <\/p>\n
Liu has pushed back on his critics. <\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps those who don\u2019t know me would see it as a form of \u2018lying flat\u2019, but I would disagree,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve built my entire home from scratch \u2026 life in the mountains isn\u2019t that much easier than working in the city.\u201d <\/p>\n
To sustain his rural lifestyle, he incorporates advertising and product placement into his videos. From selling hand cream, facial cleansers to hot and sour noodles, he\u2019s making a small income to improve his living conditions, he said. <\/p>\n
In the future, Liu is also planning to expand his home to build a chicken pen, so he can sell meat online. And, he said, he encouraged those who wanted to move to the countryside to start their own business ventures there. <\/p>\n
\u201cLife in the mountains is much better than city life \u2013 even drinking water costs money in the city,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n
Perched up against the edge of a cliff in China\u2019s southwest Guizhou province is the bamboo shack 21-year-old \u201cretiree\u201d Liu Youwen built from scratch. Three years ago, Liu left his rural hometown Xiaxixiang, Guizhou, for the city of Shantou in Guangdong, China\u2019s richest province, joining a decades-long nationwide migration of workers from the countryside that <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}