Young people in China are fangirling over a professor who gets their anxiety

Young people in China are fangirling over a professor who understands their anxiety

Young Chinese people are anxious about their future in a rapidly changing country.

“A star sent from the heavens,” is how Zihan Han describes the man she has recently become a huge fan of, a man young Chinese people call an “idol”.

But this is not a pop singer or movie star, rather a 54-year-old anthropologist. Professor Biao Xiang has emerged as an unlikely guide for an increasingly disillusioned generation.

That is because of what he discusses: anxiety and how to deal with it.

China’s economy and technology have expanded at breakneck speed, but there is plenty troubling its Gen Z, from jobs to romantic prospects to the sheer pressure of keeping up.

“The transition from school to the real world brings a lot of uncertainty now, and people often feel anxious because they don’t know how to face it,” says a 23-year-old Chinese graduate who did not want to give her name because she feared speaking to foreign media might affect her chances of finding a job back home.

“People need an anchor in their life. And his words make us feel there is someone that gets me.”

She and Zihan were among about 500 people - mostly Chinese diaspora - who recently packed into an auditorium in Singapore. Xiang spoke for more than an hour in Mandarin before taking questions. When it ended, dozens lined up to meet him and take photos. The Chinese graduate called it “an academic fan meeting”.

Xiang has been interviewed by major Chinese outlets and has travelled to leading Chinese campuses to speak, including his alma mater, the prestigious Peking University - one talk earlier this year was live-streamed because the auditorium was full. “When in doubt, ask Biao Xiang,” has become a saying, according to Chinese media.

About 500 people heard Biao Xiang speak in Singapore recently

In Singapore, Xiang spoke about the recognition young people seek in today’s China, where they often look to systems for approval - from competitive exams to secure jobs - and how that approval becomes a measure of self-worth, which can be exhausting and damaging.

He suggested it is healthier to seek meaning and understanding from others and use that to understand ourselves better.

These are hardly quick fixes. But in a country where discontent can be politically sensitive and heavily censored, he is a rare public figure who addresses what he calls the “pain point of the times”.

“Everyone knows where the issue is, but they are reluctant to look at it. Sometimes it is too painful to look at, or they don’t have a way,” he tells the BBC over tea in Singapore.

“But as an academic, it is not terrifying if you can describe it - that’s how you analyse and manage it.”

He now lives in Germany, where he is director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and studies social change in China and other parts of Asia.

Xiang believes Chinese society is at a “turning point”, where people are searching for meaning while trying to make sense of rapid social and economic change. He sees contradictions - uncertain youth in a powerful, assertive country; disillusionment despite huge advancement - and says his job is to unpack what is driving it.

China’s leader Xi Jinping has acknowledged it too: he said the “principal contradiction” was “between the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development”.

Young people are seeking a new narrative in a highly competitive China, Xiang says

Xiang has catchy names for what he believes is causing this. “Floating” is how he describes people working relentlessly just to survive, like a hummingbird that keeps flapping its wings to stay mid-air.

“The nearby” refers to what is immediately around us. Xiang argues that people are preoccupied by the “very near” (themselves) and the very far (the world) while the space in between - “the nearby” - is neglected. This, he says, leaves them feeling disconnected.

That appears to be resonating deeply with young people looking for answers.

One user on RedNote writes, “He consistently views issues from the perspective of the vulnerable, attributes personal stress to macro-level causes, and encourages people to actively engage with life - it’s truly wonderful.”

Another says, “He never spouts empty, feel-good platitudes; instead, he crouches down to face real-life dilemmas alongside us.”

Zihan says it comes down to Xiang’s willingness to speak openly about these issues: “Those who have said similar things aren’t as kick-ass as Teacher Xiang, yet people who are as kick-ass as him haven’t said such things.”

Xiang has become famous among Chinese people for his candid lectures

Born in 1972, Xiang came of age during another turning point, as China emerged from the brutal chaos of Mao Zedong’s rule to trade with the world. It urbanised, ordinary people became entrepreneurs and businesses took off for the first time in the Communist nation.

Growing up in Wenzhou, which transformed into an industrial port, Xiang saw this first-hand. “It was a vast landscape of small business owners,” he recalls. “Most people didn’t care too much about education, the focus was on practical matters - specifically, how to make money.”

And many of them did. Their children grew up in a glorious era of double-digit economic growth. But the economy slowed during Covid and has not bounced back. The old equation - hard work = secure job - no longer works, and they want a new narrative, Xiang says.

Youth unemployment reached 21.3%, before the government stopped publishing the data in mid-2023. Those with “good jobs” - civil servants, corporate employees, engineers - are anxious about losing them.

They constantly complain online about long, exhausting working hours and a toxic office culture and their fear of the “curse of 35” - a cutoff age for job advertisements, after which it is harder to find a new job.

Because of censorship, it is hard to know the true extent of this mood. But that feeling of being squeezed seeps into public discourse in other ways. That anxiety quickly turns into anger in online debates, whether about university entrance exams or bride price or food safety scandals.

Terms linked to this mood have been trending for years. The most famous are “lying flat”, when people opt out of the rat race entirely, and “involution”, a rather clunky term now commonly used to describe intense competition that generates little meaningful reward.

Xiang believes two forces have intensified this anxiety - the property market and the higher education system. The property boom, driven by local governments’ reliance on land sales, tied families’ sense of security and success to the value of their homes. And a rapid expansion in university enrolment raised the bar for achievement, increasing competition.

The result, he says, is a universal playbook: get a good degree, find a stable job, marry and buy a home.

“When 1.4 billion people are all in the same race, that is involution.”

About three years ago, when he learned that a camp for digital nomads where he spoke raised prices after his visit, he “realised I was no longer only known in the academic circles”.

Many of his peers, he said, prioritise publishing research and are “quite cold” to his methods. Some warned him about “cherishing your feathers”, a Chinese expression for protecting your reputation.

But Xiang is encouraged by his popularity.

“If someone calls me an influencer I’ll take it as a compliment. Because the real influence I can have is to make people think for themselves.”