Plasticine Generation

31/1/2011

Factiva

Dow Jones

Factiva

SE HD BY WC PD SN SC LA CY Asia - C hina Rise of the 'Plasticine' generation Sim C hi Yin, C hina C orrespondent 1020 words 13 September 2010 Straits Times STIMES English (c) 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

LP Many young C hinese professionals feel burned out, empty and numb ALMOST as soon as he wakes up at 8am each day, property agent Kevin Tu is already tired. TD He drags himself to work, and puts in nine hours in front of the computer and with clients. Then he goes home to his one-bedroom apartment in the south side of Beijing to stare at TV shows alone. A go-getting executive in a multi-national company just a few years ago, Mr Tu, 31, now lives just 'one day at a time', as he puts it.? That might be the motto for a growing group of fatigued young, white-collar C hinese known as 'eraser' or?'plasticine' men (xiang pi ren). Brow-beaten out of shape by life, they show little if any response as they are kneaded this way and that, reported a local news magazine which has popularised the term now spreading in C hinese cyberspace. Broadly defined, they are mostly white-collar workers who are somewhat numb to life, have no dreams, interests or ideals, and do not feel much pain - or joy - reported the Guangzhou-based New Weekly magazine. There are no known academic studies on this phenomenon, but the magazine cited a survey carried out last year by The Beijing News newspaper and Sina Web portal of 1,700 people across C hina. It showed that 70 per cent of them displayed signs of job burnout.? Almost 60 per cent of the companies polled also said that the incidence of burnout among their employees had increased. These 'plasticine?men' can be found among doctors, bank employees, teachers, journalists, traffic policemen, civil servants, actors and taxi drivers, the magazine reported. Typically, they work alone and for more than 50 hours a week. They feel as if they have expended all their energy and all they get in return...