Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China

The night before I was heading for Scotland, I was invited to host the final of "China's Got Talent" show in Shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium. Guess who was the performing guest?Susan Boyle. And I told her, "I'm going to Scotland the next day." She sang beautifully, and she even managed to say a few words in Chinese. [Chinese]So it's not like "hello" or "thank you," that ordinary stuff. It means "green onion for free." Why did she say that? Because it was a line from our Chinese parallel Susan Boyle -- a 50-some year-old woman, a vegetable vendor in Shanghai, who loves singing Western opera, but she didn't understand any English or French or Italian, so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in Chinese. (Laughter) And the last sentence of Nessun Dorma that she was singing in the stadium was "green onion for free." So

[as] Susan Boyle was saying that, 80,000 live audience sang together. That was hilarious.

So I guess both Susan Boyle and this vegetable vendor in Shanghai belonged to otherness. They were the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment, yet their courage and talent brought them through. And a show and a platform gave them the stage to realize their dreams. Well, being different is not that difficult. We are all different from different perspectives. But I think being different is good, because you present a different point of view. You may have the chance to make a difference.

My generation has been very fortunate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of China that has made so many changes in the past 20, 30 years. I remember that in the year of 1990,when I was graduating from college, I was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel in Beijing, Great Wall Sheraton -- it's still there. So after being interrogated by this Japanese manager for a half an hour, he finally said, "So, Miss Yang, do you have any questions to ask me?"I summoned my courage and poise and said,"Yes, but could you let me know, what actually do you sell?" I didn't have a clue what a sales department was about in a five-star hotel. That was the first day I set my foot in a five-star hotel.

Around the same time, I was going through an audition -- the first ever open audition by national television in China -- with another thousand college girls. The producer told us they were looking for some sweet, innocent and beautiful fresh face. So when it was my turn, I stood up and said, "Why [do] women's personalities on television always have to be beautiful, sweet, innocent and, you know, supportive? Why can't they have their own ideas and their own voice?" I thought I kind of offended them. But actually, they were impressed by my words. And so I was in the second round of competition, and then the third and the fourth. After seven rounds of competition, I was the last one to survive it. So I was on a national television prime-time show. And believe it or not, that was the first show on Chinese television that allowed its hosts to speak out of their own minds without reading an approved script. (Applause) And my weekly audience at that time was between 200 to 300 million people.

Well after a few years, I decided to go to the U.S. and Columbia University to pursue my postgraduate studies, and then started my own media company, which was unthought of during the years that I started my career. So we do a lot of things. I've interviewed more than a thousand people in the past. And sometimes I have young people approaching me say, "Lan, you changed

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my life," and I feel proud of that. But then we are also so fortunate to witness the transformation of the whole country. I was in Beijing's bidding for the Olympic Games. I was representing the Shanghai Expo. I saw China embracing the world and vice versa. But then sometimes I'm thinking, what are today's young generation up to? How are they different, and what are the differences they are going to make to shape the future of China, or at large, the world?

So today I want to talk about young people through the platform of social media. First of all, who are they? [What] do they look like? Well this is a girl called Guo Meimei -- 20 years old, beautiful. She showed off her expensive bags, clothes and car on her microblog, which is the Chinese version of Twitter. And she claimed to be the general manager of Red Cross at the Chamber of Commerce. She didn't realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning, almost a turmoil, against the credibility of Red Cross. The controversy was so heated that the Red Cross had to open a press conference to clarify it, and the investigation is going on.

So far, as of today, we know that she herself made up that title -- probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity. All those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boyfriend,who used to be a board member in a subdivision of Red Cross at Chamber of Commerce. It's very complicated to explain. But anyway, the public still doesn't buy it. It is still boiling. It shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions, which lacked transparency in the past. And also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog.

Microblog boomed in the year of 2010, with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled. Sina.com, a major news portal, alone has more than 140 million microbloggers. On Tencent, 200 million.The most popular blogger -- it's not me -- it's a movie star, and she has more than 9.5 million followers, or fans. About 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people, under 30 years old. And because, as you know, the traditional media is still heavily controlled by the government,social media offers an opening to let the steam out a little bit. But because you don't have many other openings, the heat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong, active and even violent.

So through microblogging, we are able to understand Chinese youth even better. So how are they different? First of all, most of them were bornin the 80s and 90s, under the one-child policy. And because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls, now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women. That could pose a potential danger to the society, but who knows; we're in a globalized world, so they can look for girlfriends from other countries. Most of them have fairly good education. The illiteracy rate in China among this generation is under one percent. In cities, 80 percent of kids go to college.But they are facing an aging China with a population above 65 years old coming up with seven-point-some percent this year, and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030. And you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially, and taking care of them when they're sick. So it means young coupleswill have to support four parents who have a life expectancy of 73 years old.

So making a living is not that easy for young people. College graduates are not in short supply.In

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urban areas, college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 U.S. dollars a month, while the average rent is above $500. So what do they do? They have to share space -- squeezed in very limited space to save money -- and they call themselves "tribe of ants." And for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment, they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their first apartment. That ratio in Americawould only cost a couple five years to earn, but in China it's 30 to 40 years with the skyrocketing real estate price.

Among the 200 million migrant workers, 60 percent of them are young people. They find themselves sort of sandwiched between the urban areas and the rural areas. Most of them don't want to go back to the countryside, but they don't have the sense of belonging. They work for longer hours with less income, less social welfare. And they're more vulnerable to job losses, subject to inflation,tightening loans from banks, appreciation of the renminbi, or decline of demand from Europe or America for the products they produce. Last year, though, an appalling incident in a southern OEM manufacturing compound in China: 13 young workers in their late teens and early 20s committed suicide, just one by one like causing a contagious disease. But they died because of all different personal reasons. But this whole incident aroused a huge outcry from society about the isolation, both physical and mental, of these migrant workers.

For those who do return back to the countryside,they find themselves very welcome locally,because with the knowledge, skills and networksthey have learned in the cities, with the assistance of the Internet, they're able to create more jobs,upgrade local agriculture and create new businessin the less developed market. So for the past few years, the coastal areas, they found themselves in a shortage of labor.

These diagrams show a more general social background. The first one is the Engels coefficient,which explains that the cost of daily necessitieshas dropped its percentage all through the past decade, in terms of family income, to about 37-some percent. But then in the last two years, it goes up again to 39 percent, indicating a rising living cost. The Gini coefficient has already passed the dangerous line of 0.4. Now it's 0.5 -- even worse than that in America -- showing us the income inequality. And so you see this whole society getting frustrated about losing some of its mobility. And also, the bitterness and even resentment towards the rich and the powerful is quite widespread. So any accusations of corruptionor backdoor dealings between authorities or business would arouse a social outcry or even unrest.

So through some of the hottest topics on microblogging, we can see what young people care most about. Social justice and government accountability runs the first in what they demand.For the past decade or so, a massive urbanization and development have let us witness a lot of reports on the forced demolition of private property.And it has aroused huge anger and frustrationamong our young generation. Sometimes people get killed, and sometimes people set themselves on fire to protest. So when these incidents are reported more and more frequently on the Internet,people cry for the government to take actions to stop this.

So the good news is that earlier this year, the state council passed a new regulation on house requisition and demolition and passed the right to order forced demolition from local governments

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to the court. Similarly, many other issues concerning public safety is a hot topic on the Internet. We heard about polluted air, polluted water, poisoned food. And guess what, we have faked beef. They have sorts of ingredients that you brush on a piece of chicken or fish, and it turns it to look like beef.And then lately, people are very concerned about cooking oil, because thousands of people have been found [refining] cooking oil from restaurant slop. So all these things have aroused a huge outcry from the Internet. And fortunately, we have seen the government responding more timely and also more frequently to the public concerns.

While young people seem to be very sure about their participation in public policy-making, but sometimes they're a little bit lost in terms of what they want for their personal life. China is soon to pass the U.S. as the number one market for luxury brands -- that's not including the Chinese expenditures in Europe and elsewhere. But you know what, half of those consumers are earning a salary below 2,000 U.S. dollars. They're not rich at all. They're taking those bags and clothes as a sense of identity and social status. And this is a girl explicitly saying on a TV dating show that she would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle.But of course, we do have young people who would still prefer to smile, whether in a BMW or [on] a bicycle.

So in the next picture, you see a very popular phenomenon called "naked" wedding, or "naked" marriage. It does not mean they will wear nothing in the wedding, but it shows that these young couples are ready to get married without a house, without a car, without a diamond ring and without a wedding banquet, to show their commitment to true love. And also, people are doing good through social media. And the first picture showed us that a truck caging 500 homeless and kidnapped dogsfor food processing was spotted and stopped on the highway with the whole country watchingthrough microblogging. People were donating money, dog food and offering volunteer work to stop that truck. And after hours of negotiation, 500 dogs were rescued. And here also people are helping to find missing children. A father posted his son's picture onto the Internet. After thousands of [unclear], the child was found, and we witnessed the reunion of the family through microblogging.

So happiness is the most popular word we have heard through the past two years. Happiness is not only related to personal experiences and personal values, but also, it's about the environment. People are thinking about the following questions: Are we going to sacrifice our environment further to produce higher GDP? How are we going to perform our social and political reform to keep pace with economic growth, to keep sustainability and stability? And also, how capable is the systemof self-correctness to keep more people contentwith all sorts of friction going on at the same time?I guess these are the questions people are going to answer. And our younger generation are going to transform this country while at the same time being transformed themselves.

Thank you very much.

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杨澜TED演讲：重塑中国的一代 中文演讲稿

在来爱尔兰的前一晚，我应邀主持了中国达人秀在上海的体育场和八万现场观众。 猜猜谁是表演嘉宾？——苏珊大妈。我告诉她，“我明天要去爱尔兰了。” 她歌声犹如天籁。而且她还可以说点中文。

“送你葱。” 这不是“你好、谢谢”之类的日常用语。这组词翻译过来是免费给你青葱，为什么她要说这个呢？因为这是我们中国版的苏珊大妈很有名的一句歌词。

这位五十几岁的大妈在上海以贩卖蔬菜为生。她喜欢西方的歌剧，但是她不懂任何外语，所以她就把中文蔬菜名填做歌词。当她在体育场里 唱到今夜无人入眠的最后一句时，她唱的是“送你葱”。苏珊大妈和全场八万观众一起唱“送你葱”，多有意思的场面。

我想苏珊大妈和这位在上海做蔬菜买卖的都属于不同寻常的人。在业界所谓的娱乐圈，他们最不可能取得成功，但是他们的勇气和才华让他们成功了。一场秀，一个平台给了他们实现梦想的舞台。

与众不同不难，从不同的角度看我们都是不一样的。我认为与众不同是好的，因为你有不同的看法，这给你机会去产生不同的影响。

我们这代人有幸见证和参与了过去二三十年中国的历史性的转型。

我记得在九十年代，刚从大学毕业的我申请了一份在北京五星级酒店销售部的工作。在日本经理一个半小时的面试后，他最后说：“杨小姐，你有什么问题要问我吗？”我鼓起勇气，定定神然后问道：“您能告诉我销售部到底销售什么？”我对于五星级酒店的销售部的职责一点都摸不着头脑。那是我在五星级酒店的第一天。

同时，我和上千名大学女生参加了一场由中国中央电视台举办的史无前例的公开选拔。制作人告诉我们他们想找一位可爱，天真，美丽的新面孔。当轮到我时，我站起来说道，“为什么女孩在电视上必须是漂亮，甜美，无邪的，像个花瓶？为什么她们不能有她们的想法，她们自己的声音？”

我想我一定得罪了评委。但是事实上，我的发言给他们留下了深刻的印象。接下来我进入了第二轮的选拔，然后是第三轮，第四轮。在经过七轮的选拔后，我胜出了。成为了一个国家电视台黄金时段节目的主持人。

不管你们相不相信，那是中国电视上第一个节目可以允许主持人自由发挥而不是去读审查后的稿子。这个节目的观众人数高达两到三千万。

几年后，我决定去美国哥伦比亚大学进修。之后我有了自己的传媒公司，这是在我刚毕业的时候想都不敢想的。

我和我的团队做了很多事情。在过去的这些年，我采访了上千人。有时候有年轻人走过来对我说：“杨澜，你改变了我的生活。”我也为此而自豪。

接下来我们一起见证了中国更多的变化。我参与了北京申奥，出席了上海世博会。我看到中国拥抱世界，世界接纳中国??但是有时候我在想，当今的年轻人追求什么？他们有什么不同？他们如何去创造中国的未来，往大了说，世界的未来？

今天我想讲讲在社交媒体这个大舞台上的年轻人

他们是谁？他们是怎样的？这个二十岁左右的漂亮女孩叫郭美美。她在中国版的推特--微博上炫耀她拥有的昂贵的手包，衣服，车子。她自称是红十字商会的经理。她没有意识到她踩到了一根敏感的神经，引起了全民对于红十字公信力的质疑。如此激烈的质问使得红

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十字会不得不召开记者招待会进行澄清，并且伴随着调查的展开。

至此，我们知道是她自己编造的头衔，大概是觉得和慈善有关事件有面子的事情。所有的奢侈品都是她的男朋友送给她的，她男朋友曾经是红十字下属商会的董事成员。这个关系解释起来太复杂了。但是不管怎么说，公众不买账。这个话题始终热议与街头巷尾。这件事揭示了公众对于缺乏透明度的政府及政府机构普遍的不信任。

微博在2010火了起来。玩微博的人翻了一番，织微博的时间也是过去的三倍了。单单新浪这个主要的新闻门户网站就拥有一千四百万微博使用者。腾讯有两千万。首屈一指的微博，不是我，是一个电影明星，她拥有超过95万粉丝。大约百分之八十的微博使用者是三十岁以下的年轻人。

如你所知，传统媒体依然由政府掌控，社交媒体给人们一个宣泄的小出口。 因为没有更多的宣泄渠道，来自社交媒体的宣泄是强大的，积极的，甚至是暴力的。

通过微博我们可以更好的了解中国的年轻人。他们有怎样的不同？

首先他们中的大多数出生于独生子女政策开始实施的上世纪八九十年代。因为很多家庭喜欢男孩多于女孩，现在我们年轻男性多于年轻女性近三百万。这可能造成社会潜在的危险，可是谁知道呢？在这个全球化的时代，他们可以找别的国家的女孩做女朋友。

他们中的大多数接受了很好的教育。文盲率在这一代人低于百分之一。在城市，百分之八十的孩子进入大学。

但是老龄化问题也不容忽视。今年的统计显示超过六十五岁的人占总人口的百分之七，到20xx年将达到百分之十五，你们知道在我们的传统文化中年轻人要赡养老人。这就意味着年轻的夫妇要赡养四位平均寿命为七十三岁的老人。因此养家糊口对于年轻人并不是件轻松的事。

大学毕业生并非供不应求。在城市，大学毕业生的起薪大约四百美元一个月，可是仅仅房租就要超过五百美元一个月。这让他们怎么应对？他们不得不合租，为了省房租挤在逼仄的小房间里，他们称自己为蚁族。而对于那些将要结婚的并且准备买房的年轻人，他们必须要工作三十到四十年才能负担起自己的第一套公寓。当对于美国人来说只需要五年就能负担得起，但是面对中国奇高的房价却需要三十到四十年。

在两千万外来务工者中，有百分之六十的人是年轻人。他们如同一块三明治被夹在城市和乡村中间。大多数都不愿再回到乡下，但是他们在城市却没有归属感。超时工作，低薪，无法享受社会福利。受通货膨胀，银根紧缩，人民币升值的影响，他们生产的产品在欧美国家的需求量下降，这使他们更容易失业。

去年，在南方某个OEM生产原地发生了骇人听闻的事件：十三个年纪在二十岁左右的工人自杀，一个接着一个的自杀仿佛感染了传染性疾病。虽然他们的自杀的原因各有不同，可是这个事件引起了巨大的社会舆论，对于外来务工人员在身体上，精神上的隔离，对于那些回到乡下的打工者，他们受到了当地的热烈欢迎。这是因为他们在城市中所学到的知识技能，在网络的帮助下，让他们能够创造更多的工作机会，提升当地的农业发展水平，在欠发达地区创造新的商机。因此，在沿海地区发生了劳动力缺乏的问题。

从一方面看起来，年轻人已参与到公共政策的制定中，但是从另一方面看，他们对于自己个人生活的需要有着些许的迷失。中国会超过美国成为世界第一的奢侈品消费市场，这还不包括中国人在欧洲及其他地区的消费。

但是你知道吗？半数的消费者的薪水低于两千美元。他们一点都不富裕。他们把这些包，衣服作为标榜他们身份和社会地位的象征。

在一档电视约会秀中，一个女孩直白的说她宁愿在宝马车中哭泣也不愿在自行车上

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笑。当然，我们有年轻人喜欢笑，不管在宝马车中还是自行车上。

在下一张图片里，你看到一个非常流行的现象叫做”裸婚“。这不是说他们在婚礼上不穿衣服，这是在说即使没有房子，车子，没有钻石戒指和盛大的婚礼，这些年轻夫妇也愿意结成连理，显示他们对于爱情的承诺。

通过社交媒体，人们做着好的事。第一张图片告诉我们，整个国家通过微博看到了这装有500只将用于食品加工的流浪狗的卡车被发现并且截停在高速公路上。人们自愿捐款，送狗粮并且自愿去截停这辆卡车。在数小时的协商下，五百只流浪狗被解救了。

还有人帮助寻找走失的小孩。一位父亲在网上上传了儿子的照片。在成千上万的转发后，孩子找到了，我们也通过微博见证了这家人的重聚。

在过去的两年里幸福是我们听到的最流行的词。

幸福不仅仅是个人的经历和个人价值，幸福也关乎环境。人们在思考这样的问题：我们真的要为了更高的GDP去牺牲我们的环境吗？

我们如何在实施我们社会政治改革的同时，保持经济增长的可持续性和稳定性？ 一个系统的自我更正能力如何让更多的人对于同时发生的各种摩擦满意？

我想这些问题将会被解答。

我们年轻的一代在改变自己的同时也必将改变这个国家。

谢谢。

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