James Kynge

My heart goes out to these young people in China.

They're often alone at home or working in these jobs which don't remunerate very well.

We've just been talking about the weakness of consumer demand linked to the fact that people's salaries are quite low.

And then when people do go to the office, they're often very long hours in regimented jobs.

And I think this is

part of the reason why we're seeing the chinese birth rate now fall to its lowest level since 1949 when the chinese communist revolution took place i mean china has a whole slew of social problems and uh

I did spend a little bit of time reading online some of the testimonies of young people being affected by this loneliness epidemic.

And it is honestly very sad.

You must have seen quite a lot of these yourself, Alice.

Yeah, I mean, when you were talking there, I was thinking of a close friend I have in China who has turned towards Buddhism.

And she's been living alone, I guess, for at least 25 years now.

And, you know, her life derives meaning from the Buddhist faith that she's adopted.

And she travels to China.

places in Qinghai and Tibet, where they have a sect of Buddhism over there, Tibetan Lamaist Buddhism.

And she gets a great deal of meaning from those experiences.

But she is, I think, lonely, and she has said that to me before.

And there's a whole nexus of rather personal pressures that she feels in her life.

I'm not saying this is peculiar to China.

You can see it all over London as well.

But it is a human condition, I think, that we are seeing more and more of in China right now.