The Year of the Dragon celebrations have been blossoming around Shanghai for nearly two weeks. Streets are lined with lanterns and filled with the sound of exploding firecrackers. Local temples are decorated in seas of red and gold and lavish displays of dragons. Outside of the city, families gather in their hometowns to eat traditional pork dumplings and carp stuffed with ginger and green onion. Elders gift red envelopes filled with money called hongbao to excited children relishing their week-long vacation from school.
Yet, amidst the New Year celebration, an intergenerational disconnect is emerging. For thousands of years, this holiday has been a time for families to gather and nurture relationships between the old and the young. With the increasingly competitive job market, more and more young people are migrating out of their hometowns and into big cities like Shanghai. While some parents feel that spending the New Year with their children is important now more than ever, many young people are resisting this tradition in favor of celebrating with their friends.
In the early reform period of the late 70s and early 80s, the New Year was the only chance working people had to go home. But that’s no longer the case, says Amir Hampel, professor of Global China Studies at NYU Shanghai. “A lot of people don’t like celebrating Chinese New Year with their families because it means relatives are going to ask when you are getting married and other awkward questions, and you might need to spend a lot of money on red envelopes,” he said. “A lot of people would rather go home on a random weekend where there’s less pressure.”
For the holiday, Gao Manrui, a 19-year-old student at Wenzhou University, visited her mother who works in Shanghai. Gao is originally from Zhejiang province on the outskirts of Shanghai, making the journey into the city both accessible and inexpensive via China’s advanced railway system. She says that during the New Year, “Older people often prefer to get together a bit more than younger people. Young people want to go on vacation, go somewhere to rest and have some fun.” Though she spent the holiday with her family this year, she hopes to have more freedom to branch away from this tradition in the future.
Her sentiment is shared among many young Chinese who want more freedom despite growing up in a period of Confucian belief, where filial piety was an important part of family structure.
“Official propaganda has used the festivities as a chance to underscore Confucian beliefs about an orderly family being the bedrock of a stable and prosperous society,” noted a Washington Post article. Some families, however, are adapting to a new prospect. “Many are fed up with outmoded holiday traditions and crushing family expectations,” wrote Christian Shepherd, the paper’s China correspondent.
Lou Keren, a 19-year-old student also from Zhejiang Province, spent the holiday with her friends this year instead of returning home from university. “Young people want excitement; old people want tradition,” she said. Lou and her friends went to Beijing Universal Studios and Disneyland. Though her parents would have preferred her to visit them during the New Year, she said that they understand the changing dynamic of her generation.
For some young people, the Year of the Dragon symbolizes more than a decision whether to celebrate with family or friends. Stuck in a similar paradox of tradition versus modernity, others take this time to assess what their futures hold. The Dragon is venerated in Chinese culture, signifying good luck and strength. So 2024 marks an especially auspicious year for those born in the Year of the Dragon, yet it also indicates a time of uncertainty.
Each Chinese zodiac occurs only once every 12 years; the babies of 2000 are now turning 24, graduated from university, and beginning their careers. “This is our year,” said 24-year-old Ding Jiahui. She was 12 years old during the previous Year of the Dragon and will be 36 the next time. “[The dragon] is a powerful symbol, so I’m feeling good about this year.”
As of 2023, more than one in five young people in China were jobless, according to the Wall Street Journal. “There’s a disconnect between the sorts of jobs that young people want today in China, especially college graduates, and the sorts of jobs that are available to them out in the market,” said former Beijing correspondent Brian Spiegel in an interview with The Journal.
Despite Ding’s optimism, she faces challenges entering the New Year. With the dismal state of the Chinese job market, she has been out of work since graduating college. Her education degree remains unused as her aspirations have since changed. She now calls herself a “freelancer,” helping her parents around the house and using her free time to explore creative outlets such as photography. “I’m hoping this year brings prosperity and success; I want to be a blogger and achieve financial freedom,” she says.
Professor Hampel says the historically high youth unemployment rate is complicated. “A lot of young people don’t want to work just to survive,” he said. The traditional life trajectory that their parents participated in is much less attractive now. According to Professor Hample, “People want a job where they can find some sort of fulfillment.” He argues that this isn’t simply an issue of laziness like the government and older generations suggest.
This New Year, mouthfuls of juicy pork dumplings are accompanied by a sour taste for many young people, who struggle to hear the jubilant sounds of firecrackers over the carping of their elders.
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