新新世界年轻人找不到工作，习近平说要学会“吃苦”China’s Young People Can’t Find Jobs. Xi Jinping Says to ‘Eat Bitterness.’袁莉2023年5月31日 XINMEI LIUGloria Li is desperate to find a job. Graduating last June with a master’s degree in graphic design, she started looking in the fall, hoping to find an entry-level position that pays about $1,000 a month in a big city in central China. The few offers she has gotten are internships that pay $200 to $300 a month, with no benefits. 格洛丽亚·李急于找工作。去年6月毕业并获得平面设计硕士学位的她从秋天开始找工作，她希望在中国中部的一个大城市找一份月薪7000元人民币左右的初级职位。她只拿到了几个实习机会，每月仅1400到2000元，没有任何福利。 Over two days in May she messaged more than 200 recruiters and sent her résumé to 32 companies — and lined up exactly two interviews. She said she would take any offer, including sales, which she was reluctant to consider previously. 今年5月，她在两天内给200多名招聘者发了消息，并向32家公司投递了简历——却只获得两个面试机会。她说她会接受任何工作，包括以前不愿考虑的销售工作。 “A decade or so ago, China was thriving and full of opportunities,” she said in a phone interview. “Now even if I want to strive for opportunities, I don’t know which direction I should turn to.” “往前10年或者20年，社会上都是欣欣向荣的那种感觉，到处都有机会，”她在接受电话采访时说。“现在你即使想要去争取一些机会，但是你深知都已经看不到可以朝哪个方向走。” China’s young people are facing record-high unemployment as the country’s recovery from the pandemic is fluttering. They’re struggling professionally and emotionally. Yet the Communist Party and the country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, are telling them to stop thinking they are above doing manual work or moving to the countryside. They should learn to “eat bitterness,” Mr. Xi instructed, using a colloquial expression that means to endure hardships. 随着中国跌跌撞撞地走出疫情，该国的年轻人正面临创纪录的高失业率。无论是在职业上还是精神上，他们都处于挣扎中。然而，共产党和国家最高领导人习近平告诉他们，不要再觉得自己不能从事体力劳动或不能到农村去。习近平指示他们，应该学会“吃苦”。 广告 Many young Chinese aren’t buying it. They argue that they studied hard to get a college or graduate school degree only to find a shrinking job market, falling pay scale and longer work hours. Now the government is telling them to put up with hardships. But for what? 许多年轻人对此并不买账。他们认为，自己通过刻苦学习拿到了本科或研究生学位，却发现就业市场萎缩、薪资水平下降和工作时间延长。现在政府还叫他们吃苦。为什么？ “Asking us to eat bitterness is like a deception, a way of hoping that we will unconditionally dedicate ourselves and undertake tasks that they themselves are unwilling to do,” Ms. Li said. “我觉得叫我们吃苦就像骗你一样，就是希望你无条件地去奉献，然后去做一些他们都不愿意做的苦差事，”格洛丽亚·李说。 People like Ms. Li were lectured by their parents and teachers about the virtues of hardship. Now they are hearing it from the head of state. 父母和老师爱教育格洛丽亚·李这样的人吃苦是美德。现在还要听国家领导人这样说。 “The countless instances of success in life demonstrate that in one’s youth, choosing to eat bitterness is also choosing to reap rewards,” Mr. Xi was quoted in a front-page article in the official People’s Daily on the Youth Day in May. “无数人生成功的事实表明，青年时代，选择吃苦也就选择了收获，”官方报纸《人民日报》五一青年节头版文章引用习近平的话说。 The article, about Mr. Xi’s expectations of the young generation, mentioned “eat bitterness” five times. He has also repeatedly urged young people to “seek self-inflicted hardships,” using his own experience of working in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. 这篇关于习近平对年轻一代期望的文章，五次提到“吃苦”。他还以自己在“文革”期间下乡的经历，反复呼吁年轻人“自找苦吃”。 “Why would he want young people to give up a peaceful and stable life and instead seek suffering?” Cai Shenkun, an independent political commentator, wrote in a Twitter post, calling Mr. Xi’s proposal “a contemptuous act toward young people.” “放着好好的安稳日子不过，偏要让年轻人自找苦吃，”独立政治评论员蔡慎坤在Twitter上写道，习近平的提议是“对年轻人的蔑视”。 广告 “What kind of intention is behind this?” he asked. “Where does he want to lead the Chinese youth?” “这是一种什么居心？”他问。“要把中国年轻人带向何处？” A record 11.6 million college graduates are entering the work force this year, and one in five young people is unemployed. China’s leadership is hoping to persuade a generation that grew up amid mostly rising prosperity to accept a different reality. 今年进入劳动力市场的大学毕业生有1160万，创下历史纪录，每五个年轻人当中就有一人失业。这一代人在日益繁荣的环境中成长起来，而中国领导人希望说服他们接受一个不同的现实。 The youth unemployment rate is a statistic the Chinese Communist Party takes seriously because it believes that idle young people could threaten its rule. Mao Zedong sent more than 16 million urban youths, including Mr. Xi, to toil in the fields of the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. The return of these jobless young people to cities after the Cultural Revolution, in part, forced the party to embrace self-employment, or jobs outside the state planned economy. 青年失业率是中共非常重视的一个统计数据，因为它认为赋闲的年轻人可能会威胁到它的统治。文化大革命期间，毛泽东将包括习近平在内的逾1600万城市青年送去下乡。文化大革命后这些失业的年轻人返城，在一定程度上迫使该党接受个体经营或国家计划经济之外的工作。 Today the party’s propaganda machine is spinning stories about young people making a decent living by delivering meals, recycling garbage, setting up food stalls, and fishing and farming. It’s a form of official gaslighting, trying to deflect accountability from the government for its economy-crushing policies like cracking down on the private sector, imposing unnecessarily harsh Covid restrictions and isolating China’s trading partners. 今天，党的宣传机器正在炮制年轻人靠送餐、回收垃圾、摆小吃摊、打鱼种田过上体面生活的故事。这是官方的“煤气灯操纵”（一种心理操控手段，使受害者产生认知失调，质疑自己的感知力或判断力——译注），试图转移政府政策破坏经济的责任，这些政策包括打击民营部门、施加不必要的严厉的防疫措施，以及孤立中国的贸易伙伴。 Many people are struggling emotionally. A young woman in Shanghai named Ms. Zhang, who graduated last year with a master’s degree in city planning, has sent out 130 resumes and secured no job offers and only a handful of interviews. Living in a 100-square-foot bedroom in a three-bedroom apartment, she barely gets by with a monthly income of less than $700 as a part-time tutor. 许多人在精神上也存在挣扎。上海的张女士去年毕业并获得城市规划硕士学位，她投了130份简历，但没有获得任何工作机会，只拿到少数面试机会。她租住在一套三居室的九平米卧室里，以兼职家教为生，不到5000元的收入仅勉强糊口。 “At my emotional low point, I wished I were a robot,” she said. “I thought to myself if I didn’t have emotions, I would not feel helpless, powerless and disappointed. I would be able to keep sending out résumés.” “前段时间情绪很糟的时候，我想如果我是一个机器人，”她说，“没有感情的机器人，我不会感到无助，我不会感到无力，我不会感到沮丧、失望的话，我就会一直投一直投。” 广告 But she realized she shouldn’t be too harsh on herself. The problems are bigger than her. She doesn’t buy into the eating bitterness talk. 但她意识到不应该对自己太苛刻。问题超出了她的解决范围。她不相信吃苦那一套。 “To ask us to endure hardships is to try to shift focus from the anemic economic growth and the decreasing job opportunities,” said Ms. Zhang, who, like most people I interviewed for this column, wanted to be identified with only her family name because of safety concerns. A few others want to be identified only with their English names. “叫我们吃苦就是要去掩盖当下国内的经济发展动力不足、就业岗位减少的情况，”她说。和我为本专栏采访的大多数人一样，出于安全考虑，她希望只透露自己的姓氏。还有一些人希望只用自己的英文名。 The party’s messaging is effective with some people. Guo, a data analyst in Shanghai who has been unemployed since last summer, said he didn’t want to blame his joblessness on the pandemic or the Communist Party. He blames his own lack of luck and abilities. 党传递的信息对一些人是有效的。郭是上海的一名数据分析师，自去年夏天以来一直没有工作，他说他不想把自己的失业归咎于疫情或共产党。他责怪自己缺乏运气和能力。 He canceled his online games and music subscriptions. To make ends meet, he delivered meals last December, working 11 to 12 hours a day. In the end he made a little over $700 a month. He quit because the work was too physically exhausting. 他取消了网络游戏和音乐的订阅。为了维持生计，他从去年12月开始送外卖，每天工作11到12个小时。最后，他一个月下来刚挣了5000元多一点。他辞职了，因为那工作太累了。 In other words, he failed in eating bitterness. 换句话说，他吃不了苦。 Mr. Xi’s instruction to move to the countryside is equally out of touch with young people, as well as with China’s reality. In December he told officials “to systematically guide college graduates to rural areas.” On Youth Day a few weeks ago, he responded to a letter by a group of agriculture students who are working in rural areas, commending them for “seeking self-inflicted hardships.” The letter, also published on the front page of People’s Daily, triggered discussions about whether Mr. Xi would start a Maoist-style campaign to send urban youths to the countryside. 习近平关于下乡的指示不仅与年轻人脱节，也和中国的现实脱节。12月，他告诉官员们“要有序引导大学毕业生到乡”。几周前的青年节，他回复了一群在农村地区工作的农业学生的信，赞扬他们“自找苦吃”。这封信发表在《人民日报》的头版上，引发了关于习近平是否会发起一场毛泽东式的运动，将城市青年送往农村的讨论。 广告 Such a policy would devastate the Chinese dream of moving up socially that many young people and their parents hold dearly. 这样的政策将摧毁许多年轻人及其父母所珍视的中国梦，即社会地位的提升。 Wang, a former advertising executive in Kunming in southwestern China, has been unemployed since December 2021 after the pandemic hit his industry hard. He talked to his parents, both farmers, about moving back to their village and starting a pig farm. He said they were vehemently against the idea. 王是中国西南部昆明的一名前广告高管，自2021年12月疫情对他所在的行业造成严重打击以来，他一直处于失业状态。他跟身为农民的父母谈起想回老家办养猪场。他说父母强烈反对这个想法。 “They said they spent a lot of money on my education so I wouldn’t become a farmer,” he said. “他们说他们花了那么多的钱给我学习，就是为了让我不做农民，”他说。 In the hierarchical Chinese society, manual jobs are looked down upon. Farming ranks even lower because of the huge wealth gap between cities and rural areas. 在等级森严的中国社会，体力劳动受到轻视。由于城乡之间巨大的贫富差距，农业的地位甚至更低。 “Women wouldn’t consider to become my girlfriends if they knew that I deliver meals,” Wang said. He would fare even worse in the marriage market if he became a farmer. “去找女朋友，人家一听说你是送外卖的肯定就不考虑了，”他说。如果当农民的话，他在婚姻市场上的处境会更糟。 It’s obvious to some young people that Mr. Xi’s proposals for solving unemployment are backward looking. 对一些年轻人来说，很明显，习近平解决失业问题的建议是一种倒退。 广告 Mr. Xi “talks about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation all the time,” said Steven, who graduated from a top U.K. university with a master’s degree in interactive design and has yet to find a job. “But isn’t the rejuvenation about not everyone engaging in physical labor?” Because of the rapid development of robots and other technologies, he said, these jobs are easily replaceable. 习近平“他每天都国家要伟大复兴”，毕业于英国一所顶尖大学、有互动设计硕士学位、目前尚未找到工作的史蒂芬说。“但复兴不是每个人去做体力活，”他说，由于机器人和其他技术的快速发展，这些体力工作很容易被取代。 Of 13 Chinese graduates from his school, the five who chose to stay in the West have found jobs at Silicon Valley or Wall Street firms. Only three of the eight who returned to China have secured job offers. Steven moved back to China this year to be closer to his mother. 他所在学校的13名中国毕业生中，有五人选择留在西方，在硅谷或华尔街的公司找到了工作。回国的八人中只有三人获得了工作机会。史蒂文今年搬回中国，以便离母亲更近一些。 Now after months of fruitless job hunting, he, like almost every young worker I interviewed for this column, sees no future for himself in China. 经过几个月徒劳无果的求职，他和我为这个专栏采访的几乎所有年轻工作者一样，认为自己在中国没有前途。 “My best way out,” he said, “is to persuade my parents to let me run away from China.” “我觉得现在对我最好的出路，”他说，“就是说服父母让我润掉。” 袁莉为《纽约时报》撰写“新新世界”专栏，专注中国及亚洲科技、商业和政治交叉议题。欢迎在Twitter上关注她： @liyuan6。 翻译：纽约时报中文网 点击查看本文英文版。 相关报道袁莉专栏：新新世界 中国青年失业率破20%拉响警报2023年5月22日 放弃白领工作、转做体力活的年轻人2023年4月12日 那些选择“躺平”的中国年轻人2021年7月5日 最受欢迎下落不明的梵高画作买主之谜：肖建华扮演了何种角色 她控告大学导师性骚扰，反遭导师之妻起诉通奸 中国宣布计划在2030年实现载人登月 空乘歧视风波背后，国泰航空的动荡与困局 中国经历新一波新冠感染潮，未影响生活常态 《继承之战》揭示了美国贪婪的现实 为什么移民英国的人越来越多 如何充分利用ChatGPT 《继承之战》完结：为什么电视剧大结局如此重要 拜登与麦卡锡达成债务上限初步协议，这里是五大要点 国际 中国 商业与经济 镜头 科技 科学 健康 教育 文化 风尚 旅游 房地产 观点与评论 免费下载 纽约时报中文网 iOS 和 Android App 点击下载iOS App点击下载Android App © 2023 The New York Times Company.