I often wonder what life would have been like had I grown up here in Beijing and not in the little Upstate New York town where I was born. When I hang out with friends from Beijing my age and listen to them reminisce about growing up here in the 70s and 80s, even as I count my blessings for having grown up safe and suburban in the States, I can′t help but feel a little envy for what Beijingers my age have experienced.

Deng Lijun

Qi Qin

Growing up where and when they did inevitably shaped Beijing′s thirtysomethings. The experiences they share really set them apart from generations above and below them. They′re a lucky bunch, blessed with the best of both worlds - traditional and modern, Chinese and foreign. They′re broad-minded and cosmopolitan but never slavishly obsessed with Western culture, ironic and often cynical without being negative or nihilistic. I′m lucky to count many of them among my friends, and as they′re due much of the credit for making my life in Beijing so enjoyable, I′m interested in just what makes them who they are.

Beijing′s thirtysomethings - born, say, between the mid-60s and the early 70s - are old enough to remember the days before the reform and opening program, but were young enough then to recall those times with only an innocent fondness: simplicity, honesty, idealism. They may have experienced privation, but they missed the worst of it - the Three Bad Years of ′59-′61 - and it left them unscarred: They weren′t sent down to the countryside, their education disrupted by political upheaval as it was for the generation above them.

Cui Jian

By the time they entered adolescence, the Deng era reforms were already underway. Most remember the waning days of the cultural revolution, and certainly the big events of 1976: The Tangshan earthquake of July 28, the death first of Zhou Enlai and then of Mao Zedong. They remember the sudden fall of Jiang Qing and the rest of the Gang of Four, and Deng′s second coming, grasping the historical moment without being old enough to feel any sense of disillusionment or betrayal at the ideological shifts these events ushered in.

Wang Shuo

It was this generation that really seized the opportunities presented by reform and opening to pioneer whole new realms of culture. As kids they watched popular consumer culture develop from practically nothing to what it became by the late 1980s, beginning with the arrival of Taiwan songstress Teresa Teng′s (Deng Lijun′s) first bourgeois pop in the late 1970s. They fed on musical pabulum like John Denver and the Carpenters before they could swallow Michael Jackson or Wham!. Along the way, they embraced break dancing, fast food, makeup, perms and blue jeans.

Zhang Yimou

It was Taiwan′s Qi Qin and, more importantly, homegrown hero Cui Jian, who really wrote the soundtrack to their coming-of-age and inspired some to rock star dreams of their own. They were the first to use the word "cool" - ku - and understand it implicitly. Long before VCDs became ubiquitous, dedicated film buffs swapped videotapes, inspiring young filmmakers like Zhang Yang and Wang Xiaoshuai - representatives of the so-called "Sixth Generation" - to deliver this generation′s answers to the lavish productions of Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige before them.

Chen Kaige

As kids they all read Jin Yong martial arts epics and the classic Chinese novels before graduating to Wang Shuo novels and an awakening sexuality. They were the first to break from their parents′ lifestyle economically as well. Economic life for them began after the Iron Rice Bowl had rusted and cracked, and many Beijingers of this generation chose to find work on their own rather than taking government-assigned jobs out of school. Many would eventually find work in the high tech, especially during the Internet boom years. Bright minds from this tech- and media-savvy formed the vanguard of China′s Internet revolution.

Most thirtysomethings have at least one sibling, born as they were before the one-child policy kicked in, and so they tend not to suffer the same afflictions of the "Little Emperors" that followed them - overdependence on their parents, self-centeredness, ADD and obesity. Unlike many of the generations above them, Beijing′s thirtysomethings have never been overwhelmed by change, alienated and unable find their footing. And unlike the generation below them, which tends to take the warp speed development they′ve grown up with quite for granted, they′re entirely appreciative of the scale of change and the world that it has opened up for them.

Close

Today's Top News		Top Lifestyle News
+Relocated get legal help to protect rights ( 2003-09-22) +Car bomb explodes near UN compound in Baghdad ( 2003-09-22) +First private publications venture OK'd ( 2003-09-22) +China scores on a header to beat Ghana ( 2003-09-22) +Endangered tiger endangers men ( 2003-09-22)		+The wonder years ( 2003-09-22) +Thieves steal US$1.18 million of gems and diamonds from Hong Kong jewelry fair ( 2003-09-22) +In Croatia, an orphan with HIV is shunned by town and peers ( 2003-09-22) +280,000 visitors expected in HK ( 2003-09-22) +Gay couple denied entry ( 2003-09-22)