You're listening to Roundtable, I'm Nye Hong -ling, joined by Steve and Yoo Shun.
Before talking about the topic of this episode, allow me to announce the news.
Ta -da! Roundtable is among the top 10 society and culture shows on Apple Podcasts for the year in the Chinese market.
Yay. Good for us! And I have to say thank you so much all of the listeners listening right now.
Thank you so much for helping us, supporting us, and being with us, and sending in voice memos, asking us questions, leaving in all those lovely, lovely messages about our motivational Mondays or Happy Places, the different topics we talk about, and sharing your insights.
Thank you so much for doing that.
Without your support, we couldn't have done this.
And in the meantime, actually our podcast channel China Plus is also selected as a popular channel for 2024.
I think it's an incredible achievement as well.
Yay! Good for us. So for those of you who enjoy Roundtable, who like the show, you can maybe check out some other shows, other podcasts that we make.
There are different ones.
If you want to know some news stories, check out for example the Beijing Hour or Top Stories.
If you're a sports fan, we have sideline stories.
And if you are someone who's listening currently who want to know some Chinese language, we also have Takeaway Chinese.
We do indeed. And you can see a lot of interesting crossover between these shows.
I think you probably can in terms of people sometimes too.
Anyway, in terms of Roundtable, that's a really, really amazing accomplishment, how popular this show is.
And you're right, no show can be popular without the people that listen to and support the show.
So thank you very much for doing that.
Continue to do that.
And do us a favor. The next time you're having a coffee with your friend, mention our show to them.
If they're not familiar with it, ask them to have a listen to the show and maybe download as well.
Yeah and I think they'll thank you for that.
And also it's approaching the end of the year.
So for the coming year, we're also selecting and welcoming new ideas, what kind of topics you would want us to discuss, what kind of new segment that you will find interesting among the people, the group of Roundtable.
Maybe you can let us know by sending us an email at Roundtable Podcast at qq .com or just leave a comment at wherever you listen to your podcast.
And to all that, thank you again.
And for today's show, we've all been there, drifting away from one's close friends, or feeling the weight of maintaining meaningful connections.
But this is a universal experience for young people today?
Or is it not? Or what kind of social activities are young people looking forward to?
Let's explore the barriers and solutions.
Deep relationships.
So to start this discussion, I think one of the key words among young people's social life is deep relationships or deep social activities.
I want to ask the young person, the youngest person here in this studio.
Okay, I'm ready. Okay, Steve.
Oh, right. Yes, please go.
I have to ask you, Yuxuan, how to define a, let's say, deep relationship?
When I was thinking about, you know, what defines a deep relationship, I hope it's one, you know, where our connection feels comfortable at any time and comfortable is the keyword in this relationship.
No matter where you are or what kind of status that you are at, we don't have to, you know, tiptoe around each other's feelings too carefully, I would say.
And even if we haven't been in touch for a long time and reconnecting would still feel as close as it did at our best moments.
So but of course, sometimes this kind of relationship is built on a mutual understanding of boundaries, actually, because neither of you would cross a line that might offend the other.
So comfortable is the word that I would say.
Yeah. And we're talking friendships here, right?
I looked on some psychology websites and they say that there are four different types of friendships and it goes from kind of an acquaintance that's level one where you know them and you might be friendly with them at the office or something like that, but you're not going to meet up, you know, outside
for a coffee or something like that on the weekend.
And then all the way down to intimate relationships.
And to expand on what you just said, Yuxuan, where you said, you know, you can open up more topics of conversation with each other on a deeper level and you try not to cross a line.
I would say that the line becomes more difficult to cross in an intimate relationship because you're so close with each other.
You can ask each other almost anything.
You can talk about almost anything.
That's how they define the four different types of relationships.
And of course, achieving level four, the intimate one, that's the most difficult to accomplish, perhaps.
Yes. And if we use that definition, we won't be surprised to see this results of a recent survey which is conducted by China Youth Daily, and they found that 71 percent of respondents think that it becomes more difficult to maintain deep social relations at present.
And also over 80 percent of young respondents think maintaining deep social relations is actually necessary to them, because if you think about it, people are definitely product of the society and their times, and we need support from our friends.
Sometimes interacting with friends is even easier than talking to and relying on your loved ones, because sometimes the burden actually comes from the relationship or the family.
This wasn't a small survey, by the way.
This was done by an online survey platform, and they asked 1 ,300 plus people.
So they didn't ask, you know, 25 people here.
They asked a lot of people.
So I think the statistics that we're going to talk about, these are pretty reliable, I would think.
What are some other results from what they found?
Yes. So as you said, more than 70 percent of respondents think it has become more difficult to maintain deep relationships at present.
And also 70 percent say maintaining deep social relations has not become more difficult, and 11 percent are in the middle saying they are not sure about this.
Probably never really thought about it before.
And in the meantime, we see that 45 percent are male among the respondents, while 54 percent are male, and those born in the 2000s take up around 16 percent.
Those born in the 1990s account for 64 percent.
So, yeah, when we say young people are talking about this age group.
So why are people saying it's becoming more and more difficult to maintain a deeper relationship?
I would say changes.
You know, time changes and the plays that you're living in changes.
Geographical mobility is the thing I would say.
I mean, one of the things, of course, people move more frequently for work or education and making it harder to maintain some deep or long term friendships and community ties.
You know, I feel like I have experienced something that's similar myself because I moved to a city that is completely different from my hometown.
And I've noticed some changes.
Not as different as my hometown.
Yeah, how different it is.
So back in school, I had many close friends and we often, you know, hang out together and do homework together or something like that.
But after I moved to another city, I began to feel that our relationships slowly grew more distant.
Even if we get together again, of course, it might still feel the same as before.
But because our living environments and experiences that we're having are now so different, our relationships inevitably seem to undergo some subtle changes.
You cannot say that we're not close anymore, but it's just a different kind of close.
Yes. So it's like there's a feeling that they don't understand me or you as well as they used to.
They did a similar style study in the United States and it was done by YouGov.
And I thought this was interesting.
And this might be an answer and an answer, excuse me, to the question as well.
Three in 10 Americans, 31 percent, said that they find it difficult to make new friends.
So if you find it difficult to make new friends and you don't make new friends because that takes time and effort and energy to do that, then you're not going to have serious friendships in the future.
The previous friends that you had, you just talked about it.
You shouldn't. Those change over time.
Geographical convenience is one of the reasons for that, but also just life.
People go off in different directions.
They have different experiences and it's an inevitability that your friendships will change.
So if you're not making new friends and establishing new relationships, then it's going to be more difficult to have deeper relationships in the future.
I found that statistic a little bit.
I don't know. How do you feel about that?
Three in 10 people.
I wonder what that answer would be in China.
In America, they said 30 percent of people find it difficult to make new friends.
Do you guys find it difficult to make a new friend?
I don't make new friends.
I hardly maintain my relationship with my old friends because I don't have time these years.
That's the thing for me.
A relationship or relationship with friends is something that takes up a it should take up a lot of my time, which is why maintaining a deeper relationship with a close friend is difficult.
It's not from the emotional side.
It's not like I don't have the enthusiasm to talk to my close friends.
It's just I simply don't have the time for the past two years.
When I started to have a kid, I realized almost all of my time are distributed to my work and my family life.
I think that is the challenge for me.
But I also want to know what is the situation for young people there because on top of having time to do socializing, they also have the need to meet new people, to know the world through new people.
So I did a little bit research on that.
And and I want to know whether or not my findings are correct because we do have a very young representative here in the studio.
So OK, so the first finding I've got is that currently here in China, one from the or on the medium front.
We see besides popular online platforms like WeChat like QQ, Weibo, Red or Xiaohongshu.
These are the social media platforms that are quite popular here in China.
Some of them are anonymous.
Some of them would exist among your real friends, like offline friends.
And besides this, we see offline interactions such as traveling together, different exhibitions, campus walls in different schools, as well as the kind of markets like pop up markets would be a way for young people to socialize, especially make new friends in the real life.
Is that so for you?
I think socializing is definitely one of the parts that young people would in favor of.
And it's a big part in their life because basically, if you're saying what would you do in your spare time, go socializing.
Of course, you have strangers.
I think some of them we do.
You know, I used to visit some of these kind of anonymous chat rooms.
I quite enjoy it. Sometimes it's also in English.
So maybe I am practicing English anyway.
Anyway, I would also look for fellow fans online after watching a concert and then we would meet up to sing karaoke together and all of these without knowing each other beforehand were just strangers to each other.
And the reason I found this comfortable or interesting was because I felt they were there with me in the moment.
And honestly, I didn't have to work hard to maintain these relationships.
Yeah, right. We're just, as you said, maybe acquaintance.
Yeah, we know it. We know each other.
We have same interests, but we don't need to be friends.
And these spaces like the anonymous chat rooms or karaoke rooms were like a real life version of a disappearing message.
Once you left the room, no one could find you or even remember you.
Yeah. Right. But I don't think, you know, it seems like whenever we talk about friendships and especially this type of topic, you know, oh, we don't have a lot of deep relationships in our lives.
It sounds like we're talking about it like it's tragic.
Yeah, but I don't think it's tragic at all.
I think it's a natural part of growing up and getting older.
And I think that when you're younger, you're a teenager, when you're in your 20s, when I think back to my early 20s, I would be friends with anybody.
I didn't care. I don't care.
I didn't even care if you were a really good person or not.
You know, my my my bar was quite low.
If I liked having fun with you, that was good enough for me.
But as you get older, your priorities change and your standards change and your energy levels change and your desires change, you know, like meeting random people and exchanging contact information and chatting sometimes.
Well, that seems a little bit exhausting to me now.
So my opinion is, you know, we talk about those four different types of friendships.
Number one being the acquaintance, number two, the casual friend and then the intimate.
I think we need friends at all levels.
If we think about friendships like an onion, right, we need those surface level friends where you say, hey, how you doing?
Have a good weekend.
OK, see you whenever or never.
I don't really care.
You know, we need those types of people.
We also need one or two, maybe even just one intimate friends in our lives.
And that might be your romantic partner.
Who knows? So my point is, I don't think we should overreact to statistics like these.
And for some people it might be serious.
But for other people, it's just a natural part of life.
I totally agree. And actually, after doing a little bit research on the current trends and also like Steve has just mentioned, the standards for people that you hang out with for your close friends, actually, I realized that young people today are especially here in China, the young people today, they
are getting more brave than I, at least my generation when I was young.
How so? They are instead of viewing the kind of relatives in their family, the kinship very deeply or it's not even viewing your family members, your distant family members dearest.
It's more like for my generation, I still care a lot about that relationship to the extent that cannot be my true self.
I could not tell the true feelings about certain social issue or certain my personal relationship.
For example, when I was asked to buy these not really close family members, but young people here in China these days, they are much more they're braver.
They know what they want.
They know maybe they do not like certain distant relatives.
Then they do not talk to them.
They do not care about whether or not it's a bit awkward because they know what they want.
And at the same time, when it comes to interacting with new friends, instead of asking for a friend that is up to standard to all different front, they would also, for example, go to a certain circle.
For instance, if they have pets and they love pets, they would have a circle of friends who also are pet lovers.
And they talk about pet related topics, whether or not these people would see them eye to eye on a certain, I don't know, a certain movie star, or maybe if they work in the same industry, it does not bother them.
So young people today, they know what they want and they go for it and they spend reasonable amount of time with those friends.
And I think that's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing.
And let me just say, you know, on the point that I made before where I said, oh, we don't need that many real, true, deep friendships, don't misunderstand.
I'm not saying that we don't need friends at all because we absolutely do.
Back to that you go of report from the United States.
Millennials said that they have no acquaintances.
Twenty five percent of millennials said they had no acquainted.
That's one in four people saying they had no acquaintances.
That's dangerous, in my opinion.
That can lead to serious loneliness and maybe even depression in your life.
If you're at that point, then I think it's important that you make an effort to get out there and make some new friends.
But I wasn't talking about that group.
I was talking about just in general.
But if you do find yourself there, yeah, don't misunderstand.
It's very important to have people in your life that you consider to be acquaintances or friends.
And by saying having acquaintance, it's not like you don't need to pay any responsibility on this friendship.
It's just I think it is telling people that you don't need to have too much pressure on this relationship because people are having the same idea on this kind of acquaintance relationship.
And also from my observation, it's not like people will always have that deep relationship all the time because people will have different friendships or different friends on or in their different stage of their lives, I would say.
Maybe in their when when they're young, they have that group of people as their friends or even have the deep relationships with them.
And maybe when they're getting to work, they have deep relationships with their colleagues.
It's not that tragedy that you will have, OK, I lost a group of friends.
It's just people's lives are changing and we may have different lifestyles and you may encounter different types of people.
And these people may be a circle of your life and you create new friend circles with them.
Yeah, yes. Looking for passion?
How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
It's Roundtable with myself, Neil Honglin, Steve Heatherly and Yuxuan.
In a world obsessed with productivity and utility, is there value in doing things just for joy?
Do you sometimes feel that the secret to happiness lies in the useless things that we do?
So I want to ask both of you what is the last time you engage in a useless activity and how do you like it?
First of all, I can't remember, but I know I loved it.
Really? So how do you define useless to start with?
I don't think there's I don't think there's such thing as useless.
Yeah, if you're asking me and I was thinking, OK, if it's gonna be useless, then I could I would think that I am doing it, but it's just not use.
OK, for example, I was thinking the useless thing that I've been or I did.
So I often do what I often do is that I when I go somewhere, especially when I'm walking, I'm I take a different route on my way back, even though, you know, it might take me more time.
So this is maybe the thing that I can think that is useless.
And in the way of useless is that it's not the most efficient way that we do things.
So people call it useless.
So the term useless is a synonym for a waste of time, right?
Doing a useless activity.
You feel like you're wasting your time.
I found this from a website called Quartz and the title was the psychological importance of wasting time.
And this is what it says.
I want to read this to you.
The problem comes when we spend so long frantically chasing productivity that we refuse to take real breaks.
We put off sleeping in.
We put off going for a long walk or reading by the window.
And even if we do manage time away from the grind, it comes with a looming awareness of the things that we should be doing.
So the experience is weighed down by guilt.
And I totally agree with this.
We are we have become as societies obsessed with being productive of every waking minute of the day.
And we feel like and I don't know whose fault this is.
We feel like if we take a break and we do something that's not productive, that we're wasting our time, that we should be doing something else.
That guilt feeling comes.
That's a terrible thing.
That's why my answer to your initial question only was I love wasting time.
You know, I love turning my brain up.
I love video games.
And that's the reason I love it.
Is it productive or adding something to my daily life other than giving me the opportunity to de -stress, turn my brain off and really think about nothing?
No, it's accomplishing nothing.
But it's accomplishing that goal.
Which I think is really important.
Yes. The reason I ask you these questions is because one asked this question.
A lot of netizens online have listed certain things that they see or they deem useless, including go outside and feed a stranger stray cat, painting or picking up a old hobby that they have left.
Either it be painting or playing ukulele or simply doing some handicraft work and create something very beautiful.
And these hobbies, they think these hobbies are quote unquote useless because they cannot generate profit.
They are not taking care of or bringing benefit to others.
They're not productive.
They're not productive, but they're definitely making you feel better psychologically.
And that's the point.
And so when we hear on roundtable say useless things, we are also encouraging you to do the things that are mentally comforting to you.
They do not always we should not always be chasing productivity.
And this is a fun topic because recently we've been working with Zhuangzi, who is an ancient, an ancient, very wise philosopher in China.
And he has also talked about the importance of useless.
Yeah, you know, one story that I would recommend you to read or it's just a little fun story.
You know, a man who raised a monkey originally planned to give the monkeys four acorns in the morning and three in the evening, but the monkeys were really dissatisfied.
So he changed it to three in the morning and four in the evening, and the monkeys were overjoyed.
It's just like the core of these things didn't change.
Or, of course, we are doing the things that we think that are useless, but it is about the way that you think it is about.
I mean, when we're thinking we're choosing to do something seemingly useless, it's actually because those things are useful.
Maybe I choose a different path to go back.
It is an opportunity for me to see more scenery, to see different routes or even meet strangers.
So when we're thinking about these things, maybe thinking it in another way, that is how we treat useless things.
Perspective, yes. Don't forget, self care is really, really important.
It's super important to take care of your body and your soul and your mind.
Yeah. So for those of you who are listening, pick up that ukelele, make that aimless bus ride, go feed that stray cat.
The useless things might just be what you need the most.
And that brings us to the end of today's roundtable.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's topics.
Leave us a comment or send us an email to roundtablepodcast .qq .com and we will see you next time.
