LIVING the DREAM

BY TAN YUNFEI (譚云飛)

We are all dream-seekers,”President Xi Jinping said in his televised New Year greetings to the nation in December 2019. From alleviating poverty to space exploration to the all-encompassing“Chinese Dream,” the nation has never been afraid of big aspirations.

Regular folks, too, like to announce ambitious changes to their lives at the year’s start. But while plans to read more books and hit the gym don’t sound nearly as grand as rejuvenating the entire Chinese nation, they often prove just as hard to fulfill. Anyone who discards their resolutions 24 hours into the New Year are fair game to be dubbed a 光想青年 (guāngxiǎng qīngnián, think-only youth)—an idle dreamer who is all talk, and no action.

This term first emerged ahead of the“618” online shopping festival on June 18, 2019. To promote the event, online shopping site Tmall asked Weibo users about personal resolutions that they’ve failed to uphold. “To have an ideal life,don’t just think about it (理想生活別光想, lǐxiǎng shēnghuó bié guāng xiǎng),”the e-commerce platform concluded as thousands shared their stories of abandoned travel plans and discarded diets, perhaps implying that youths can at least take advantage of deals to get some merchandise they’ve been dreaming about.

The phrase is often used in gentle mockery. For instance, when a friend talks for the umpteenth time about wanting to do repairs around the house or learn a new language,without making any apparent

progress, you can tell them, “Stop thinking and take action! (別做

光想青年了，你倒是行動啊！Bié zuò guāngxiǎng qīngnián le, nǐ dàoshi xíngdòng a!)”

Sometimes, though, dreams are

just pleasant fantasies, all the nicer when there’s no obligation to make them reality. Next time you’re being nagged to make some selfimprovement, the term 意念 (yìniàn, by mind) is a good retort. For instance,you can justify binge eating during your diet by saying you’re practicing“mental weight-loss (意念減肥 yìniàn jiǎnféi).” The popular phrase 意念回復 (yìniàn huífù, mental reply) is the perfect excuse for forgetting to respond to your instant messages and emails, or ignoring them: “請相信，我看到你消息的時候用意念回復了。(Qǐng xiāngxìn, wǒ kàndào nǐ xiāoxi de shíhou yòng yìniàn huífù le. Believe me, I already replied in my head after I saw your message.)”Some people are critical of this seeming lack of “can do” attitude among today’s youthful dreamers:The expression 嘴炮式戀愛 (zuǐpàoshì liàn'ài, romance by lip service) is a selfdeprecating term among so-called 倔強式單身 (juéjiàngshì dānshēn, stubborn singles), who are addicted to romance dramas and want to find a partner, but feel afraid to commit to a relationship and often reject their would-be wooers.Others, though, view dreaming youths more sympathetically. “If a person has no dreams, how do they differ from ‘salted fish?’ (做人如果沒有夢想，和咸魚有什么區(qū)別呢？Zuò rén rúguǒ méiyǒu mèngxiǎng, hé xiányú yǒu shénme qūbié ne?)” asks a popular internet meme, suggesting that idle dreamers are a compromise between stressed-out overachievers and “salted fish”—slang for young people who no longer have any ideals, having been driven to despair by high house prices, low career prospects, and other pressures of modern life.“It is still necessary to have dreams;what if they come true? (夢想還是要有的，萬一實現(xiàn)了呢? Mèngxiǎng háishi yào yǒu de, wànyī shíxiàn le ne?)” another meme concludes on the importance of being a thinking-only youth. So shoot for the stars: You can at least imagine that you’ve landed among them.