『Week 4 』
The trouble is that coming up with rules to define a swathe of humanity is more art than science. It is liable to become an exercise in applying stereotypes; not every youngster is sipping kombucha in a Brooklyn warehouse.
Gen Z barely notices the physical world and slavishly follows the latest hype from Instagram or TikTok.
But what works best is the seamless combination of the digital and physical worlds.
Some will be urban professionals, gliding between cities on high-speed trains. Many will ride slower green-skin trains, squeezed into crowded carriages or sitting on corridor floors as they trundle across China on journeys that may last 40 hours or more.
Yet amidst all this efficient service, old divisions of class, wealth, ethnicity and gender can be heard, too. For green trains are rolling cross-sections of life in China, a still cruelly unequal place. Some discrimination is blithely unconscious.
Pondering so many years away from his children, he sighs: “I don’t know how to describe that feeling.”
Collective progress, individual angst
Other passengers echo her talk of life’s harsh pressures. Gleaming infrastructure is impressive. Building a fair, happy society is harder.
