China Daily today tells us:

A survey conducted by chinahr.com, a leading Chinese recruitment website,
shows over 90 percent of white collars felt anxiety and depression as the past
year came to an end and a new year took off, with half of them planning to
change jobs, according to Monday’s Beijing Morning Post.

The results came from a poll of more than 1500 white-collar employees with
government departments and companies in 15 industries, such as IT, finance, and
manufacturing.

"Having lived a busy, humdrum and vain life for another year" was the reason
cited most for their year-end blues, accounting for 28.4 percent of the
respondents, followed by "falling short of set targets," cited by 26.7 percent.
Just over 17 percent said they felt low because their work didn’t go smoothly,
while 14.5 percent were simply worried about getting old.

     And just in case we didn’t get the point the editors run a series of links in the margin with titles like:

      "Sixty percent of white collars under stress in China"

      "White collar workers in Guangdong under extreme pressure"

      "Chinese no longer want ‘white collar’ title"

    Using a somewhat different idiom, we might go so far as to say: "it’s hard out here for a white collar."

     In a way, this makes me think of the 1960s in the US.  People, young people in particular, were growing increasingly uncomfortable with the alienation and regimentation of the corporate life of "the organization man."  A "counterculture" came to life; hippies opted out of the expectations created by their parents and sought liberation in the grand trio of sex and drugs and rock and roll.

    In China, we are certainly seeing the embrace of sex and rock and roll (or other forms of rebellious popular culture).  Not sure about the drugs.  There have even been sightings of Chinese hippies.   But I think the process of alienation from modernization is still rather new in China.  More young people still seem willing to throw themselves into the maw of global capitalism and try to make their fortune.  Yet the kinds of stories that China Daily cites makes me wonder….

     If a "countercultural" turn does come (and if it is not immediately co-opted and commodified by capital as the US version was), perhaps young Chinese will seek solace in indigenous cultural resources, especially those of Taoism.  A Chuang Tzu revival born of frustration with the mindless competition of global business!  I’m all for it.  The Confucian revival has not yet crested, but maybe a Chuang Tzu renaissance is not too far off….  Sing it to me Master Chuang:

If springs dry up, leaving fish stranded together on dry ground, they may keep each other other with their misty breath and frothy spit – but that’s nothing like forgetting each other in the depths of rivers and lakes.  We can praise Emperor Yao and condemn Chieh the tyrant – but that’s nothing like forgetting them both and dwelling in the transformations of Tao. (86).

      Cool.