Getty Images“A star sent from the heavens,” is how Zihan Han describes the man she’s become a huge fan of recently, a man who young Chinese people call an “idol”.
Except this is no pop singer or movie star, but a 54-year old anthropologist. Professor Biao Xiang has become an unlikely guide for an increasingly disillusioned generation.
And it’s because of what he talks about: anxiety and how to navigate it.
China’s economy and tech have grown at breakneck speed, but there is plenty worrying its Gen Z, from jobs to romantic prospects to the sheer pressure of keeping up.
“People need an anchor in their life. And his words make us feel there is someone that gets me.”
She and Zihan were among some 500 people – mostly Chinese diaspora – who piled into an auditorium recently in Singapore. Xiang spoke for more than an hour in Mandarin before he took questions. When it ended, dozens queued to meet and take photos with him. The Chinese grad called it “an academic fan meeting”.
Xiang has been interviewed by major Chinese outlets and has travelled to top Chinese campuses to talk, including at 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.
In Sinapore, Xiang spoke of 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.
It is healthier, he suggested, 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 the 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 making sense of rapid social and economic change. He sees contradictions – uncertain youth in a powerful, assertive country; disillusionment despite huge advancement – and his job, he says, 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”.
Getty ImagesXiang has catchy names for what 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.
This seems 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 boils down to Xiang’s willingness to talk openly about these things: “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.”
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 turned into entrepreneurs and businesses took off for the first time in the Communist nation.
Growing up in Wenzhou, which transformed into an industrial port, Xiang witnessed 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 hasn’t bounced back. The old equation – hard work = secure job – no longer works, and they want a new narrative, Xiang says.
Youth unemployment hit 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’s 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, be it about university entrance exams or bride price or food safety scandals.
Getty ImagesTerms associated with 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 which generates little meaningful reward.
Xiang believes two forces have amplified this anxiety – the property market and the higher education system. The property boom, fuelled by local government’s reliance on land sales, tied families’ sense of security and success to the values of their homes. And a rapid expansion in university enrolment raised the bar for achievement, intensifying 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 one’s 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.”
