‘It’s an Endless Cycle’: China’s Lost Generation
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- 他把纹身和香烟视为少数不能放弃的开支，疼痛和吸烟让他暂时从不稳定的生活压力中抽离。
- 面对难以预料的明天，他表示只能“活在今天”。
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On a breezy September evening in Shenyang, a city of 9.3 million people in China’s northeastern rust belt, 19-year-old Bai Yongguang is keeping still while a tattoo artist goes to work. As the electric needle begins etching the red face of a Japanese hannya mask on his left forearm, the first part of a full-body piece that will include a Chinese dragon and a tiger, Bai is using his free hand to chain-smoke Lucky Strikes. To Bai, ink and tobacco are two nonnegotiable expenses. The stinging pain and hum of the needle ground him, and smoking offers a brief escape from the precarity that awaits him beyond the walls of the shop.
Bai grew up in a small village two hours away by high-speed rail, where his mother raises cattle and his father drives trucks selling animal feed, dreaming of a simple life close to nature. After dropping out of high school (he says he couldn’t take the full-time, military-style dorm life), he drifted through factory gigs in a series of Chinese manufacturing hubs until an overdose of cough medicine left him with permanent nerve damage. When he clenches his fists, his arms shake uncontrollably, ruling out any more heavy manual labor. At Mixue, a well-known bubble tea chain, he serves as many as 1,000 cups of iced tea per shift for 3,800 yuan ($569) a month. To stretch his paycheck, he eats a single meal each day. “When I run out of money, my girlfriend and I just share one slice of bread,” he says. “We just live for today. Who can predict tomorrow?”