Alice Han

And then on the older end of the scale, you hear a lot of stories about elderly Chinese who get abandoned by their children or their grandchildren, their spouses have died, and they're effectively single and alone.

And so I think this app really speaks to a pressing need societally amongst Chinese, everyday Chinese, to feel like they matter and that their life counts.

It's interesting to see how China has evolved

over the last, call it, four decades, the first two of which was about aligning towards a capitalist regime.

The next decade was about high-speed growth.

And I sense that there is a kind of moral vacuum and a self-questioning about what is it all for.

Some people, in the case of my parents, for instance, and a lot of their peers, go towards religion.

Buddhism is on the rise.

We have to look into the numbers, but just anecdotally, almost everyone I know, their parents are now Buddhists overnight, over the last decade.

And then some of them go towards the digital ecosystem, the digital life.

And as a result, I think we end up with a society in China that is actually more isolated than it has ever been.

And remember, this is a very family-driven society.

If you go back to Confucian thought and Confucian writings, the society is based around family.

But what happens when the family only has one child and then it's one middle-aged person taking care of elderly people?

I think that is the society that we're increasingly confronting in China.

But James, have you actually come across people in China who have felt lonely?

The reason I feel reluctant to ask this question somewhat is that unlike in the West, where I think it's more open as a discussion, the loneliness epidemic to talk about being lonely.

This is a Chinese expression, 很孤独, like it's not really it.

It's not really a phrase that you hear a lot in China.

And so to what extent are people being self-reflective or acknowledging that they are lonely?