[LINK] "China's Lost Generation Finds Itself in Ukraine"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Adam Minter reports from Kiev.

The latest viral story in China is the rags-to-riches tale of a young man named Mei Aicai. A working class high-school graduate who scored abysmally on China's college entrance exam, Mei now owns his own business, claims title to three-quarters of an acre of land, lives in a split-level house, and is married to an eighteen-year-old who -- the Chinese internet universally agrees -- looks like a model. One more thing: Mei achieved all his good fortune after leaving China for Ukraine.

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

It's not hard to imagine what would have happened to 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.