No Time to Be Work-shy

This friend – let’s call him “Charlie” – is my first Shenzhen friend, a vivacious young man I can’t help but gently tease. There’s a schoolboy silliness to his affect and an accent to his English that makes him the Joey in our circle of Friends. He’ll often just remember the noun form of a word (like when he wants to “act nature”) and for some words he’ll stress every syllable, pronouncing “elegant” like “L.A. gaunt.” 　

For fun he scrolls quickly through 30-second videos, too impatient to let any of them finish. He’s a font of pop culture gossip and he’s always showing off strangers’ selfies, asking what we think. When he runs out of things to say, he’ll turn with bright eyes and his failsafe request: “Tell me something that is new.” 　

When my father-in-law saw him for the first time, he marveled: “That is the skinniest young man I’ve ever seen.” Charlie’s now trying to change this. He’ll lift weights with me, lugging out an enormous vat of bright-pink protein powder afterwards. We make our shakes together, then he dilutes it down with hot water. He shouldn’t drink cold things, he says. 　

His face isn’t quite right, at least to his eye. It’s a good face, in my opinion, with sharper angles and a paler complexion than southern men usually have. But a doctor said it’s too oily, so Charlie went to a friend-of-a-friend for injections. Then he went to a hospital where they painfully destroyed layers of skin along his cheekbones and crown chakra. The rectangular strips of lingering redness made him look like a futuristic clown, but he applied his ointment and avoided the sun as instructed. He’s looking better now. 　

And for reasons I couldn’t fathom, he wants to drive a car. So one day, after taking the company bus to work at one of Shenzhen’s tech giants – finally a good job, after years of low-wage, high-stress sales gigs – he snuck off for a driving test. It would be quick. He was sure they wouldn’t miss him. 　

But the testing place made him wait two hours before he could get behind the wheel. When he finished, he bundled into a Didi to hurry back to the office... only to get into an accident on the highway. No one was hurt, but he had to wait there until everything was settled. By the time he finally rolled into the office, his manager, of course, had noticed he was gone. 　

To add salt to the wound, he didn’t even pass the test. But he wasn’t fired, at least. 　

All of this is to say, I’ve always seen Charlie as a little silly. Until the final line of that 　

Bond film: 　

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” 　

That line struck me as disconnected from the film, but instead almost perfectly aimed at the disaffected youth of China. Young people here are in a crisis, according to stories spreading though outlets from Sixth Tone and the South China Morning Post to The New York Times and the BBC. 　

As they tell it, a disillusioned portion of the rising generation has turned against the ideal of hard work and the “996” office culture that fueled tech giants like Alibaba. While exact numbers aren’t certain, thousands join online forums to discuss a tang ping lifestyle that puts aside material concerns and abandons a corrupt world that won’t reward them anyway. 

　

But not Charlie. 　

In this context, I see my friend in a new light. All his silliness is actually striving to improve his body and his mind. He even wants to buy a car, a huge commitment of time and money. In all his habits that make me smile, I see something hopeful. 　

He’s still cuddly as a kitten and playful as a puppy, but our friend Charlie is one of the reasons China can have faith about its future. This young man from a tiny village, carried by his own will alone into the big city, brings with him an energy to remake himself and the world around him. Despite the grind of work culture and all our urban annoyances, he brims with an optimism that leaves me jealous. I’m so lucky I can call him my friend.