Stress over holiday gifts and nitpicking

BY LEE DO-SUNG
The author is a Beijing correspondent for JTBC.

When I was a trainee reporter, one of my seniors handed me a gift box before leaving the newsroom. It was a mixed nut set, with almonds, walnuts and pine nuts. I realized it was the day before the Lunar New Year holiday. As there were no gifts reserved for trainees who joined the company less than six months ago, the senior reporter gave me his own gift.

When I returned home, my mother smiled brightly and was proud that her son who just graduated from college received and brought home a holiday gift. I belatedly realized what the senior reporter intended when he nonchalantly gave the gift to me.

I was reminded of the memory from more than 10 years ago upon seeing Chinese people showing off their gifts for the Lunar New Year on Chinese social media. Posts about which company gave what gifts followed one after another.

In particular, Chinese IT companies provided employees with fancy packages. Portal site Baidu gave away travel bags, while 360 Security Technology gave camping equipment. ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, gave high-end speakers.

Most of them came in colorful packages for the Year of the Dragon. People posted photos of the gifts and asked what others got. Some lamented that the gifts from their company are shabby.

But some people are envious of such lamentations. Showing off gifts is just a “competition among the haves.” Lately, the Chinese economy has been seeing some red signs. One is the soaring youth unemployment rate. Even state media described it as an “unemployment catastrophe.” The youth unemployment rate announced last July was 21.3 percent, the highest ever. Since then, the statistics bureau has been silent without any announcement.

Then, six months later, the statistics were presented with two-thirds of the previous number after a new survey method has been applied. Chinese experts say that the potential unemployed will reach 16 million if the “full-time children” living off their parents are included. Some claim the actual youth unemployment is around 40 percent, twice the government’s announcement.

It is not just the young Chinese that are reluctant to meet their relatives for the holiday. In a survey on 3,411 adults by a job platform in Korea, 35.6 percent said they are stressed about the holiday. The top reason was “excessive questions and unsolicited advice related to jobs” (47.5 percent). One in four jobseekers said they will not return to their hometown for the holiday. They’d rather stay alone than get unwanted comments. How about breaking the ice with encouragement rather than being nosy over the next holiday?