As China’s most difficult college entrance exam, the “Gao Kao” (高考), takes place today and tomorrow, students across the nation have been scrambling to prepare for what will possibly be one of the most difficult exams of their lives. For to pass the dreaded Gao Kao will secure spot at one of China’s universities. After graduation, students in China traditionally go straight into the workforce. But is this still the case for a modern youth more obsessed with picture perfect?
Just as the millennials of the West are swapping “fashion consumption” for “experiences”, so it appears this is the path China’s post 90s generation is on too. As fashion houses continue to report drops in sales and close up shops, trendy cafés and Third World travel are on the up.
Post 90s and early 2000s generations the world over seem to be smartening up to the pull and push of consumerism. However, in addition to a spike in travel, leisure activities and Costa Rican yoga retreats, the youngsters of today are swapping the need to be trendy on the street, for the need to be trendy online.
Just as with their Western counterparts, Eastern youths spend copious amounts of time taking pictures of food and obsessing over a perfect pose that portrays some kind of new “experience” that can be flaunted online. Instagram, for example, is flooded with picture perfect, wholesome foods and tanned beauties doing cartwheels on the beaches of Bali.
While China’s WeChat won’t be featuring tanned skin, its pale-perfect snaps of food, cocktails and Egyptian holidays spent speeding in dune buggies across the Moroccan dessert, strikes a similar influx of perfectly polished “experience” shots.
Nanjing’s historical attractions, alleyways and universities certainly provide picture perfect Instagram or WeChat backdrops for a flawless shot, and now, restaurants are cashing in on the craze, by creating the space for just that.
Similar to London’s sketch restaurant, Nanjing’s Frenzy Fountain and its pink interior resembles styles featured in the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel. “I don’t think the focus is on the food at these places”, says Tracy Tao, local restaurant manager, talking with The Nanjinger. “Restaurants are being designed specifically for young people to go and take pictures of their food”.
Indeed, Nanjing is now home to a number of such “themed” restaurants including various, New York, German, French and Mexican looks, where the focus is definitely not on the food and more so the decor. As Nanjing’s entertainment industry buckles its standards for the perfect WeChat shot, prices remain at an all time high.
Cocktails at ¥100 to wash down a ¥300 grilled fish might break millennial bank accounts and bolster credit loans, but it sure makes for a pretty picture. In what is probably a first for China, her youths no longer value study, living frugally nor modestly. The picture perfect syndrome is also making its way abroad with tens of thousands of Chinese tourists posing with Thai monkeys and champagne in Santorini.
As China’s latest wave of high school graduates sit the Gap Kao examination, their most recent predecessors flaunt online a life outside the traditional confines of a career and frugality. Perhaps China’s latest innovation and entrepreneurial push can help harness an increasing dislike for a traditional workforce.
