Generation bald
▶ Young Chiinese turn to self-deprecating humor amid mounting work pressure
Young people feel their increasingly stressful lives are leading to hair loss
Self-depreciating jokes about hair loss among the young are popular online
Experts suggest society may be putting too much pressure on the younger generation
Self-deprecating humor on baldness among young people has become more intensive on China’s social media in recent months.
A cartoon depicting an aerial view of waiting passengers in Beijing’s subway stations has gone viral online. The upper part of the cartoon shows an aerial view of passengers in other subway stations represented by solid black circles. The passengers at Zhongguancun station, a high-tech hub in Beijing, are represented by open circles.
Most workers in Zhongguancun are programmers, a group of people believed to be prone to suffer baldness in China.
The topic in Zhihu, a Quora-like question-and-answer website in China, “What does it feel to suffer from balding?” attracted many comments from young people.
“I really begrudge pulling out a single hair from my head, even if it is a white hair,” a user said, sharing her feelings about going bald.
An anonymous user wrote about his experiences going bald, “I know you are staring at my ‘angel loop,’ but I will keep smiling during our conversation; I know you are pointing at it behind my back, but I will avoid a verbal spat with you; I know I will lose my chances for this reason, but I will continue with my utmost efforts.”
“As a member of the generation born in the 1980s, although I am not bald yet, the hair on the top of my head has become thin,” commented another anonymous user.
“But it makes me feel a little better when I see some younger people who are in more severe shape than I am,” the user wrote.
Black humor
Wang Lele (pseudonym) started to lose her hair when she was 27 and under immense pressure from work and her parents.
“Every day my parents pushed me to find a husband. Since then, my hair volume has obviously decreased, followed by a receding hairline,” Wang told the Global Times.
Wang, who was busy with her doctoral studies, simply cut her hair short.
“Hair loss affects my appearance and makes me look dispirited. I have tried all the traditional methods over the years. All kinds of imported anti-hair loss shampoos and medicines just won’t work for me,” said Wang. “I got over the issue by telling myself, ‘If medicine works, the British royal family members would all have bushy heads.’”
Wu Wenyu, a dermatologist of Huashan Hospital, an affiliate of Shanghai’s Fudan University, said that people born in the 1980s comprise 38 percent of his patients with baldness, and those born in the 90s comprise 36 percent, according to a video posted on Pearvideo, a short video platform in China.
Wu said that he has been a dermatologist for 20 years and in the recent years, most of the patients he treated are born after the 1980s or 1990s. The youngest patient he received is only 15 years old.
“The problem (of hair loss) has to do with unhealthy living habits. Staying up late, unhealthy habits many young people have, as well as dietary habits and anxiety all accelerate early hair loss,” said Wu.
Li Jian, an engineer working overseas, told the Global Times that he started losing his hair several years ago when he was under pressure at work.
“I got over the issue by telling myself, ‘If medicine works, the British royal family members would all have bushy heads.” Wang Lele (pseudonym)
A doctoral student who suffers from hair loss
Like Wang Lele, Li also started losing hair when he was 27. “I was appointed as the person in charge of an engineering project for the first time, and I was under such a massive workload I stayed up until 2 am every day,” Li told the Global Times.
Li’s hairline is receding and his hair is quickly thinning. “I look at least 10 years older than I actually am.”
Li is an engineer of an electric power plant design institute who works in projects overseas all year round.
After several years of fighting and struggling, Li turned to hair implant surgery in June 2018. “Within half a year, the implanted hair will grow normally,” Li told the Global Times, full of hope.
Roots of problem
Lin Xiaoqing, a dermatologist with the Minnan Hospital, an affiliate of Fujian Medical University, told the Global Times that it is groundless to say hair problems such as hair loss root in the kidneys, a deeply held traditional belief in Chinese traditional medicine.
According to Lin, most hair loss cases are caused by the secretion of excess male hormones, which is hereditary. But some of his patients have no such family medical history.
The onset age of this disease is becoming lower and lower in China, both in men and women, which is mostly due to the abnormal secretion of excessive male hormones due to unhealthy dietary habits and staying up late, said Lin. He added it has nothing to do with kidney deficiencies, masturbation or an excessive sex life.
There are also voices to encourage balding young people to stay strong and positive.
“The time when I got my best luck in love coincided with the time when I was suffering severe hair loss during my graduate studies,” said a netizen, adding that “men should focus on career and capability enhancement instead of being anxious about baldness.”
“However, with outstanding capability, I became the vice chairman of an association in my university.”
When a British household appliance brand released a hair curler in October, on the sidelines of a hot debate on its high price, Chinese young people grabbed the chance to joke about their decreasing hair volume.
A girl said on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, that she bought the new hair curler even though it cost 3,000 yuan ($435), because the hair volume it created would help to compensate the desperation caused by her receding hairline.
However, after using it the first time, the girl “saw the amount of fallen hair everywhere in my room was even more than the hair on my head. So it returned the curler and bought a vacuum cleaner.”
“A money shortage is not the reason why I refuse to buy the 3,000 yuan hair curler,” said another blogger. “It is because I don’t have enough hair.”
Nowadays the “self-deprecating” humor has spread to the younger generation. Tu Feifan, a student of the High School Affiliated to Nanjing Normal University, wrote a poem to mock her hair loss.
I lose my hair in the final year of my middle school,
My hair is falling when I am doing mathematics homework.
When I entered high school,
My hair drops when I am doing physics homework.
Humor is a special and positive and relaxed way for students to cope with stress. “But the point is to find a proper and suitable mode of life amid the high pressure,” said Tu.
Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance, told the Global Times that life stress such as high home prices is the major pressure facing young people in China nowadays.
Zhu believes that the pressure that faces the young generation could have a negative influence on social development in the long run.
Zhu suggests the government make public policies from the perspective of the young generation, to help diminish the pressure on them, such as creating a more relaxed environment in terms of social welfare and having children.