'Lying flat' stigma easing in HK - but not as long-term lifestyle

A recent YWCA survey on tang ping - or "lying flat" -offers a useful insight into how the city's youngsters view the phenomenon that is fast gaining traction.

Tang ping was one of the most searched words on the Chinese search engine Sogou in 2021, while "goblin mode" - the closest definition given in the Oxford Dictionary - was voted "word of the year" in 2022.

However, it is a way of life that many still find difficult to fully understand.

The term can be passive as it is usually associated with people withdrawing from society, living a life of low desire and showing indifference towards everyday events.

Those choosing to tang ping say it is effectively impossible to achieve returns proportional to efforts made, no matter how hard they try.

However, the irony is that it can also be rather positive, as in the case of a Zhejiang resident.

In 2016, Luo Huazhong resigned from the factory where he had been working because - as he recalled in an internet post at the beginning of the pandemic four years later - the job made him feel so empty that he had to live a different lifestyle.

Luo did not actually lie flat at home playing video games as many others did.

Rather, he got on his bicycle and cycled 2,100 kilometers from Sichuan to Tibet, using the social media name"kind-hearted traveler."

But all journeys must end and, after returning to Zhejiang, Luo studied philosophy while continuing to get by with casual jobs and earning the minimum needed to survive.

We know tang ping - or lying flat - is being talked about more often here in Hong Kong, but few actually understand the local situation.

Thanks to the YWCA survey, those concerned about the trend finally have some reliable statistics to refer to as they try to understand this intangible, yet important, phenomenon.

The survey, conducted from September to November 2024, interviewed a total of 990 Form 1 to Form 6 secondary students on what they thought about lying flat.

The results showed 52.6 percent had neutral feelings about the trend, 34.8 percent felt negative about it and 12.6 percent viewed it positively.

Also, 48 percent said they would support friends to lie flat if they felt a need to do so, indicating it was no longer seen as a negative choice.

Interestingly, about 27 percent admitted that they had already switched into the tang ping mode.

Among this particular group of tang ping students, just over 41 percent said they had been living that way for more than a year.

According to the survey's organizer, a majority of the respondents viewed tang ping as a temporary way of life rather than a lifestyle that they wished to maintain permanently - and that is the most encouraging discovery from the survey.

It is apparent that trying to be didactic as one educates youngsters to aspire to big achievements could easily backfire these days.

The survey findings do not offer a road map, but they provide useful information for decision makers to refer to as they plan forward.