Eternal Moment refreshes memory of China's young generation
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A scene from the 1998 TV series Cherish Our Love Forever. [China.org.cn] |
Mourning for our adolescence
There are many online posts that show the pictures of food and toys people used in the 1980s. The people from this time were dubbed as the post-1980 generation. A person who took the alias Xiao Li, 26, was the owner of a shop named "memory hall of post-1980 generation."
"I traveled to the markets all over China to search for the old stuff," he said. From the eraser to cartoon pictures, from building blocks to the enamel cup, the shop boasted 166 items that ignited the memory of young people.
"Each month, an average of 1,000 items were sold," Xiao Li said. Not much. But he noted that the items revived his sentimentality. A new T-shirt pattern has become popular. The t-shirt features a girl and a bespectacled boy named Han Meimei and Li Lei. They were both characters in English textbooks for middle school students from 1990 to 2000. It was estimated that hundreds of millions of students used the book.
The textbooks had been changed. In the new book, which was published in 2009, Han Meimei was married and had children but her husband was not Li Lei. In connection with the characters,, songs and dramas were produced about the imaginary love affair of the two cartoon figures.
He Jing, who was born in 1981, became popular after he posted his drawings online. The pictures showed the middle-aged lives of cartoon figures that are popular with the post-1980 generation. On the pictures, Shiryu from the Japanese cartoon Saint Seiya became a masseuse. Saint Seiya was one of the best-known Japanese cartoon characters from which Chinese children learned the horoscope.
On the pictures, detective Black Cat was imprisoned for taking bribes, and the Bottle Gourd Brothers joined a televised talent show. The figures were all from Chinese cartoon films.
He, a fan of cartoons when he was a teenager, said that he got the idea based on social reality. "Bribery was common and the talent show was a novel thing in those years." Sociologist showed their understanding of the nostalgia for the post-1980 generation.
Zhang Sining, a research fellow at the Liaoning Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the fast-pace of society made young people frustrated and lonely. "As a result, they began to miss the old age when they were carefree," he said.
Also, he noted that with economic development, people began to seek spiritual fulfillment. "The memory could soothe their hearts." Chen Changwen, director of the Sociology and Psychology Department of the Sichuan University, said it was human nature to reminisce. "The reason was usually dissatisfaction and pressure," he said, adding that since the single-child policy started in 1980, pressure could be big for that generation.
However, he believes that the post-1980 generation should look ahead. They are going to be in their 30s, the professor said. In Chinese there is a saying, "a man should be independent and steadfast at the age of thirty."
"Now the generation has become the backbone of their families and society at large, they should take up more responsibility," he said.
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