More than half of Chinese millennials “have no sex life.” At least, that’s one of the banner claims to emerge from a new survey commissioned by TryFun, an adult toy manufacturer backed by NetEase (one of China’s biggest internet companies).
Last week the company released the results of their “China Sex Report of the 8090 Generation” (referring to those born in the 1980s and ’90s), which included the finding that “over 50% of those below the age of 25 have no sex life.”
That makes for some nice headlines, but probably needs to be put into a bit of context. For one thing, the survey sample is relatively small: there were fewer than 4,500 respondents. For another, it’s limited to those with a NetEase inbox. It’s an attention-grabbing stat to throw out as a company looking to get some exposure for your products, but not necessarily the most scientific of data sets.
That said, the survey does make for some interesting reading. It mostly deals with the market for adult toys, but before that it presents some general info on the state of Chinese young people’s sex lives:
Male respondents are apparently having sex more regularly than female respondents, with the percentages on the right there indicating the proportion of those who took the survey who are having sex at least once a week. As to whether they’re telling the truth here, who can really say?
This graph shows how often the respondents say they have sex, with ages down the left and the key on the right breaking it down by “on average more than twice a week”, “once a week”, “once every 0.5 months”, “once a month”, “less than once a month”, and finally “other” for that grey color.
One more graphic that caught our eye: this breakdown by city tier. First tier cities — i.e. what the government classifies as the most developed parts of the country — make up the top line, followed by second and third tier cities, with the same frequencies on the right as laid out for the previous chart.
Along the bottom there are some choice city stats: 45% of Shanghai and Beijing residents apparently have sex more than once a week, while in Guangzhou and Hangzhou it’s 50%, Shenzhen 60%, and in Sichuan province 67.3% of people are at it more than once a week.
You can dig into the full report (Chinese only) right here.
Our Photo of the Day series this week features drone photography from Angus Burgerman.
Summer in Shanghai means crazy hot days and over-crowded community pools. Without the luxury of a backyard pool, many flock to Playa Maya [water park] in Sheshan to cool off… like Froot Loops.
Originally from Australia, Shanghai-based Angus (@angusburgerman) describes himself as “chasing the China Dream while exploring China from another angle – through road trips and drone flights”.
The humble soybean has found itself in the spotlight of US-China relations of late thanks to its role in the ongoing trade war.
While Forbes recently quoted the head of the US Soybean Export Council as saying China’s targeting of the product was a “dumb move,” China made the bean the star of a Trump trash talking English-language propaganda video about the trade war:
But we’re not here to talk about the trade war so much as to point you toward an article that touches on the soybean’s historical role in US-China ties — or more specifically on how the soy-based foodstuff tofu found its way to America.
That’s the tale spun in this article from Smithsonian Magazine, a publication from the eponymous institute. The piece looks at the fascinating story of Dr. Yamei Kin, who “was something of a celebrity” in her field.
The author writes:
A year earlier, with much fanfare in the press, she had embarked on a tour of China to investigate the culinary uses of tofu, with a headline in the June 10, 1917, edition of The Sunday New York Times Magazine proclaiming, “Woman Off to China as Government Agent to Study Soy Bean: Dr. Kin Will Make Report for United States on the Most Useful Food of Her Native Land.” Now she was back to share her findings.
It’s that time again, folks: Qixi Festival. Qixi Festival, aka Double Seventh Festival, aka Chinese Valentine’s Day, falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar. It celebrates the annual celestial meeting of the cowherd and the weaver girl, two forbidden lovers banished to different corners of the sky.
Today, you can celebrate that meeting on WeChat by renting yourself out for daily activities at a rate of your choosing or by smashing loved up couples apart via a “runaway single dogs” arcade-style game.
These are just two of the ways that some of China’s young people will be marking the annual lover’s day.
A number of “rental” mini-apps (programs embedded within WeChat) have cropped up this year, chief among them the straightforwardly-named Qixi Rent Yourself. The app lets users “rent out” other users for activities, from the useful to the mundane to the bizarre. You can rent a user for something saucy, like kissing. Or something utilitarian, like grocery shopping. Or you could rent them to wear a matching outfit with you and meet your parents (that’s two separate orders, though).
We signed up, and chose our eight available services from the list provided:
pretend to be your boyfriend,
work out together,
spend the night (!!!),
go jogging together,
take you to a movie,
help you pick clothes,
take you out for drinks,
and eat something delicious.
It should be noted that the “spend the night” option includes the additional text “get paid instead of paying.” Tricky, tricky.
Once you’ve selected the activities and set a price, the app creates a poster advertising your services and slaps a QR code on it. You post this to your friend feed on WeChat and those who take pity on you can then scan the QR code to donate some digital spare change.
As to whether you actually follow up on performing the stated tasks is up to you. The Qixi Rent Yourself app includes a disclaimer in its instructions that, “the app is for fun and not really for renting, it’s a way to exchange rewards”, but there has been trouble with such supposedly harmless games.
An article on NetEase from 2017 tells the alarming story of a “millennial wife” Lili who signed up for a similar “rent yourself” service around this time last year. She posted her calling card online where it was seen by her husband, who was, unfortunately, “born in the countryside.” He apparently took it a bit too seriously, freaked out and demanded she take the “advert” down, and when she refused, slapped her. Lili slapped him back, and the two had an all-out brawl. Later, after a visit to court for domestic violence charges, the husband apologized and the couple are back on their feet. Still, not a great way to spend Chinese Valentine’s Day.
Meanwhile, for those who feel especially embittered by Qixi, there’s Runaway Single Dogs. This arcade-style game allows you to blast apart happily strolling couples, collecting purses of money and power-up doggie bowls as you go (“single dogs” has been a popular slang term for singletons in China for a few years now).
Not going to lie, it’s a pretty fun game to while away a bit of your commute on. And let’s be honest, separating imaginary couples digitally is at least a little less mean-spirited than the Shanghai pranksters who booked every single odd-numbered cinema seat for a rom-com screening on Valentine’s Day 2014.
Our Photo of the Day series this week shares photos from Found Sound China.
Found Sound China is a new cultural exchange program bringing together music producers from China and the US. The program just completed its first edition, which took 6 producers through Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Shanghai and Beijing, where they collaborated with local musicians, exchanged innovative approaches to music-making, and shared their work with Chinese audiences.
In frame: The crew celebrating Holi festival at Lijiang Studio, Yunnan.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Zhibo is a weekly column in which Beijing-based American Taylor Hartwell documents his journey down the rabbit hole of Chinese livestreaming app YingKe (Inke). If you know nothing about the livestreaming (直播; “zhibo”) phenomenon in China, start here.
Comment of the Week the scooter is the best in Beijing
There are plenty of things about daily life in China that serve as constant reminders that one is not in Kansas anymore – the language, the people, the buildings, eating with chopsticks all the time, the occasional airpocalypse, etc.
Scooters, however, are stealthily one of the biggest differences between life here and back home. If you’re not familiar with the electric scooter situation in China, allow me to enlighten you.
In Beijing, a scooter can be purchased at any one of about a billion stores scattered across the city. I really don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that you are within reasonable walking distance of a scooter shop basically anywhere within the 3rd ring road. There’s no registration, no licensing, no plates, no tests, nothing. You don’t need an ID, there’s no paperwork, and – if you’re one of the last people in the city without WeChat Wallet or Alipay – you can pay with actual cash if you want.
As far as I’m aware – and traffic conditions certainly support this theory – electric scooters are legally classified as bicycles. You can drive them wherever you want, park them wherever you want, and interpret lights, lanes, and even the direction of traffic as loose guidelines at best. Now, I’m sure there are rules on the books about what bicycles and scooters can technically do, and of course I personally would NEVER violate traffic regulations, but I can tell you from my experiences… let’s say *watching* Beijing traffic…that the average scooter-rider tends to view red lights as challenges and the bike lane as last resort.
And if you’re picturing a bunch of hoverboards or little battery-powered bicycles, think again – these things are basically slower motorcycles that make up for their limited speed (30-40 mph on the good ones) by being almost completely silent. And yet despite the overwhelming likelihood of getting into at least a few minor accidents, countless people still ride them all over the city and would rather risk death than give ‘em up.
And to be frank, count me firmly on team Deathwish – zipping around the city may kill me one day, but I’ll have lived an entire extra life with all the time I’ve saved doing so.
Strangest Question(s) of the Week You from Vietnam? / Are you from Taiwan?
Look, I’m all for setting aside racial stereotypes and trying to evaluate stuff on a case-by-case, but there are certain demographic/statistical realities that make these questions a tad unnecessary.
Well, that and the American flag in my Inke username.
Funniest Moment of the Week Watching these two random commenters fight
“No comment”
I may not get *much* trolling on Inke, but there’s still a bit of schadenfreude to be had when two unpleasant commenters start aiming their ire at each other instead of yours truly. In this case, a question about whether [certain island] is part of [certain country] prompted this little squabble.
I, of course, remain neutral and opinion-less when it comes to such matters.
Mysterious Question of the Week Do you practice everyday? Your finger is very good!
Ah, the mysteries of the comment section. The only finger-centric activity I do regularly on Inke is playing the piano – but I am neither good at it nor was I playing the day this comment popped up. So either this person is very kind and has a good memory or…
…you know what, that’s as far as I feel like riding that train of thought.
Odd Compliment (?) of the Week He is strong enough to let girls love him
I don’t know if I’m missing some kind of Chinglish here or if this fella is just real weird. This is the same guy who told me he was going to throw me into the Pacific ocean a few weeks back, though, so I’m going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and assume “weird.”
Practical Chinese Lesson of the Week 我昨天喝断片儿了
This is one of those Chinese phrases that – ironically enough – I’ve probably learned before but keep forgetting. For you aspiring Chinese scholars who enjoy a libation or six now and then, 喝断片 (he duan pian) means to black out:
喝 hē: to drink
断 duàn: to break or snap
片 piàn: a thin piece or slice OR a movie/dvd/CD/etc.
So essentially, 喝断片 means to slice up the movie of your life by drinking. I of course wouldn’t know anything about blacking out, but a good friend who lives in my mirror informs me that a faulty film reel skipping over critical sections of a movie is actually a pretty damn good description of the phenomena.
Ego Boost of the Week You’re good-looking, you’re right about everything
I take back everything I’ve ever said about internet commenters. This is a sagacious bunch.
pretend to be your boyfriend, 
