Han Han, a balinghou writer popular among his peers. [File photo]

Most of their elders call China's balinghou (post-'80s generation) selfish, apathetic and materialistic.

Like many people her age, 19-year-old Cao Si from Hunan doesn't like the stereotype. Still, she admits: "It's kind of true."

Cao puts it this way: "If someone from my generation gets two apples, they will eat them. If someone from my mother's generation gets two apples, they will save them both to give to their children."

The point is, either way the balinghou end up with both apples - and believing they deserve them.

China's "Me Generation" was born after the 1979 adoption of the one-child policy and was hyperactively doted on, leading to the "little emperor" and "little princess" syndromes. They then came of age during the country's opening-up and economic miracle.

Such forces have thrust wedges between China's youth and their elders that have stretched the generation gap into a generation gulf.

"Our generation believes we should live easily in this world," Cao says. That means spending money on fun and luxuries - fashionable clothes, magazines, nights out - never dreamed of by their impoverished elders.

"If I earn 100 yuan ($14), maybe I'll save 40 and spend 60. If my mother earns 100 yuan, maybe she'll spend 40 and save 60."

Spendthrift consumption is all the easier for the younger generation since they haven't earned the cash, explains 22-year-old Guangzhou student Zhong Jinfeng.

"Many people born after the '80s and '90s don't have to go to work," he says. "They just spend their parents' money because they don't know how hard it is to make."

As 51-year-old Xu Yihe says: "This generation has been more protected by their parents and enjoyed more material comforts."

But China's 20-somethings are getting a harsh wake-up call as they're pushed from their coddling families into the real world, a transition 23-year-old news agency editor Zuo Yuanfeng calls "a hard journey".

China's rat race is being accelerated by market reforms, increased university enrollment, fewer jobs and the growth of the younger-than-29 demographic, which currently accounts for about 45 percent of the population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

"It's too fast, and every day we must face competition if we want to have a good life," Cao says.

NBS estimates suggest that by 2015, the number of Chinese younger than 30 will surge by 61 percent to 500 million people - more than the current population of the entire European Union.

As 19-year-old Zhang Rong points out, the pressure is compounded by parents' expectations that their only children will care for them after retirement.

"In my family, there are only three people but in my mom's family, there were a lot of brothers and sisters, so if one could get a job, they could feed them all," the student from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region says.

"So I have to consider how much money I must earn to support my family every month."

China's National Committee on Ageing estimates the country will have more than 174 million residents older than 60 by 2010, most of whom will be cared for by only children.

Many balinghou say the fact they've had it easier than their elders doesn't mean they've had it easy.

"It's a challenge - the pressure - and with globalization, so many new things are emerging, so the younger generation has had to do a lot to both absorb these and protect themselves from these," Zuo says.

Some resent the perception that their lives are cushy, as portrayed in popular TV series, such as Fen Dou (Starting From Scratch), which follows the lives of seven friends in their 20s. "Everyone who's not balinghou thinks that's what balinghou are like but our lives aren't like that," says a 24-year-old Beijing Youth Daily editor, who would only give her surname, Xie.