A ‘loser’ in China, an inspiration in Ukraine

The latest viral story in China is the rags-to-riches tale of a young man named Mr Mei Aicai. A working-class high-school graduate who scored abysmally on China’s college entrance exam, Mr Mei now runs his own business, claims title to three-quarters of an acre of land, lives in a split-level house, and is married to an 18-year-old who — the Chinese Internet universally agrees — looks like a model.

One more thing: Mr Mei achieved all his good fortune after leaving China for Ukraine.

For the Chinese public, the moral of Mr Mei’s story is clear: For anyone who lacks family connections, elite academic credentials and a big bank account, it is now easier to achieve upward mobility in Kiev than in Shanghai.

It is not hard to imagine what would have happened to Mr Mei, with his modest background and limited education, had he remained in China. Faced with a slowing economy, high housing prices, widening income inequality and a tough job market for college graduates, millions of young Chinese now feel stuck on the lower-middle rungs of their country’s ladder of success.

This widespread feeling has coalesced into an identity known as “diaosi”. The term is commonly translated into English as “loser” —although its most literal translation would be a vulgar reference to the male anatomy — and was originally used to describe young, under-employed Internet-obsessed males.

But over the past five years, it has escaped its derogatory connotations, transforming into a more pliable identity available to anyone who wants to distance himself from China’s money- and status-obsessed culture.

LOSING THE ‘LOSER’ IDENTITY

For some people in China, such distancing is a voluntary pastime. But for Mr Mei’s many peers, it is not a choice at all. For them, the diaosi identity is an expression of their straitened economic circumstances.

When the Market and Media Research Center at Peking University, China’s top academic institution, recently released a nationwide online survey of China’s working class, it was no coincidence that it bore the title The 2013 Diaosi Living Conditions Report.

Sixty-two per cent of the 213,795 working-class people who responded to the Peking University survey identified themselves as losers.

The men ranged in age from 21 to 25, women from 26 to 30 (though the diaosi identity more commonly attaches to males).

They average US$471 per month (S$618) in income (by comparison, Beijing’s average monthly income last year was US$936). They generally cannot afford to own their own homes, in part because 71 per cent give money to their parents on a monthly basis (averaging US$173, or roughly one-third of their monthly income).

The consequences are rough, especially for men, who are widely expected to own their own homes before marriage.

Perhaps the least surprising finding of the Peking University survey is that half of all self-identified diaosi are single, and 72 per cent say they are unhappy with their lives.

Enter Mr Mei Aicai. His Ukrainian success story first appeared on Chinese news portals on Dec 8 and it was almost immediately characterised online as a diaosi counter-attack.

Mr Mei was praised for avoiding the diaosi fate by taking up residence in a place where his natural talents were not suppressed by China’s academic culture (and its obsession with testing), and an expectation that he had proper connections (and the taint of corruption so often associated with them).

In an interview with one news outlet, Mr Mei also suggested that China suffered by comparison with Ukraine not only economically, but culturally. Mr Mei emphasised that Ukrainian women, unlike their Chinese counterparts, marry for love, rather than money. That sexist comment has been echoed for days in online comments by young male diaosi frustrated by China’s materialistic dating culture.

Diaosi are not politically organised and they do not represent a coherent social movement. But they are representative of the diminished expectations that many young Chinese have as China enters a prolonged period of slower growth and rigid income inequality. If the Chinese government truly hopes to reform its economy, it will need to find a way to make sure that they do not continue to feel like losers in a game rigged against them. BLOOMBERG

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Adam Minter is an American writer based in Asia, where he covers politics, culture and business.