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TED Talks, Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China

Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China

The night before I was heading for Scotland, I was invited to host the final of "China's Got Talent" show in Shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium. Guess who was the performing guest? Susan Boyle. And I told her, "I'm going to Scotland the next day." She sang beautifully, and she even managed to say a few words in Chinese: 送你葱 So it's not like "hello" or "thank you," that ordinary stuff. It means "green onion for free." Why did she say that? Because it was a line from our Chinese parallel Susan Boyle -- a 50-some year-old woman, a vegetable vendor in Shanghai, who loves singing Western opera, but she didn't understand any English or French or Italian, so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in Chinese. (Laughter) And the last sentence of Nessun Dorma that she was singing in the stadium was "green onion for free." So [as] Susan Boyle was saying that, 80,000 live audience sang together. That was hilarious.

So I guess both Susan Boyle and this vegetable vendor in Shanghai belonged to otherness. They were the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment, yet their courage and talent brought them through. And a show and a platform gave them the stage to realize their dreams. Well, being different is not that difficult. We are all different from different perspectives. But I think being different is good, because you present a different point of view. You may have the chance to make a difference.

My generation has been very fortunate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of China that has made so many changes in the past 20, 30 years. I remember that in the year of 1990, when I was graduating from college, I was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel in Beijing, Great Wall Sheraton -- it's still there. So after being interrogated by this Japanese manager for a half an hour, he finally said, "So, Miss Yang, do you have any questions to ask me?" I summoned my courage and poise and said, "Yes, but could you let me know, what actually do you sell?" I didn't have a clue what a sales department was about in a five-star hotel. That was the first day I set my foot in a five-star hotel.

Around the same time, I was going through an audition -- the first ever open audition by national television in China -- with another thousand college girls. The producer told us they were looking for some sweet, innocent and beautiful fresh face. So when it was my turn, I stood up and said, "Why [do] women's personalities on television always have to be beautiful, sweet, innocent and, you know, supportive? Why can't they have their own ideas and their own voice?" I thought I kind of offended them. But actually, they were impressed by my words. And so I was in the second round of competition, and then the third and the fourth. After seven rounds of competition, I was the last one to survive it. So I was on a national television prime-time show. And believe it or not, that was the first show on Chinese television that allowed its hosts to speak out of their own minds without reading an approved script. (Applause) And my weekly audience at that time was between 200 to 300 million people.

Well after a few years, I decided to go to the U.S. and Columbia University to pursue my postgraduate studies, and then started my own media company, which was unthought of during the years that I started my career. So we do a lot of things. I've interviewed more than a thousand people in the past. And sometimes I have young people approaching me say, "Lan, you changed my life," and I feel proud of that. But then we are also so fortunate to witness the transformation of the whole country. I was in Beijing's bidding for the Olympic Games. I was representing the Shanghai Expo. I saw China embracing the world and vice versa. But then sometimes I'm thinking, what are today's young generation up to? How are they different, and what are the differences they are going to make to shape the future of China, or at large, the world?

So today I want to talk about young people through the platform of social media. First of all, who are they? [What] do they look like? Well this is a girl called Guo Meimei -- 20 years old, beautiful. She showed off her expensive bags, clothes and car on her microblog, which is the Chinese version of Twitter. And she claimed to be the general manager of Red Cross at the Chamber of Commerce. She didn't realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning, almost a turmoil, against the credibility of Red Cross. The controversy was so heated that the Red Cross had to open a press conference to clarify it, and the investigation is going on.

So far, as of today, we know that she herself made up that title -- probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity. All those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boyfriend, who used to be a board member in a subdivision of Red Cross at Chamber of Commerce. It's very complicated to explain. But anyway, the public still doesn't buy it. It is still boiling. It shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions, which lacked transparency in the past. And also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog.

Microblog boomed in the year of 2010, with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled. Sina.com, a major news portal, alone has more than 140 million microbloggers. On Tencent, 200 million. The most popular blogger -- it's not me -- it's a movie star, and she has more than 9.5 million followers, or fans. About 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people, under 30 years old. And because, as you know, the traditional media is still heavily controlled by the government, social media offers an opening to let the steam out a little bit. But because you don't have many other openings, the heat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong, active and even violent. So through microblogging, we are able to understand Chinese youth even better. So how are they different? First of all, most of them were born in the 80s and 90s, under the one-child policy. And because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls, now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women. That could pose a potential danger to the society, but who knows; we're in a globalized world, so they can look for girlfriends from other countries. Most of them have fairly good education. The illiteracy rate in China among this generation is under one percent. In cities, 80 percent of kids go to college. But they are facing an aging China with a population above 65 years old coming up with seven-point-some percent this year, and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030. And you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially, and taking care of them when they're sick. So it means young couples will have to support four parents who have a life expectancy of 73 years old.

So making a living is not that easy for young people. College graduates are not in short supply. In urban areas, college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 U.S. dollars a month, while the average rent is above $500. So what do they do? They have to share space -- squeezed in very limited space to save money -- and they call themselves "tribe of ants." And for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment, they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their first apartment. That ratio in America would only cost a couple five years to earn, but in China it's 30 to 40 years with the skyrocketing real estate price. Among the 200 million migrant workers, 60 percent of them are young people. They find themselves sort of sandwiched between the urban areas and the rural areas. Most of them don't want to go back to the countryside, but they don't have the sense of belonging. They work for longer hours with less income, less social welfare. And they're more vulnerable to job losses, subject to inflation, tightening loans from banks, appreciation of the renminbi, or decline of demand from Europe or America for the products they produce. Last year, though, an appalling incident in a southern OEM manufacturing compound in China: 13 young workers in their late teens and early 20s committed suicide, just one by one like causing a contagious disease. But they died because of all different personal reasons. But this whole incident aroused a huge outcry from society about the isolation, both physical and mental, of these migrant workers.

For those who do return back to the countryside, they find themselves very welcome locally, because with the knowledge, skills and networks they have learned in the cities, with the assistance of the Internet, they're able to create more jobs, upgrade local agriculture and create new business in the less developed market. So for the past few years, the coastal areas, they found themselves in a shortage of labor.

These diagrams show a more general social background. The first one is the Engels coefficient, which explains that the cost of daily necessities has dropped its percentage all through the past decade, in terms of family income, to about 37-some percent. But then in the last two years, it goes up again to 39 percent, indicating a rising living cost. The Gini coefficient has already passed the dangerous line of 0.4. Now it's 0.5 -- even worse than that in America -- showing us the income inequality. And so you see this whole society getting frustrated about losing some of its mobility. And also, the bitterness and even resentment towards the rich and the powerful is quite widespread. So any accusations of corruption or backdoor dealings between authorities or business would arouse a social outcry or even unrest.

So through some of the hottest topics on microblogging, we can see what young people care most about. Social justice and government accountability runs the first in what they demand. For the past decade or so, a massive urbanization and development have let us witness a lot of reports on the forced demolition of private property. And it has aroused huge anger and frustration among our young generation. Sometimes people get killed, and sometimes people set themselves on fire to protest. So when these incidents are reported more and more frequently on the Internet, people cry for the government to take actions to stop this.

So the good news is that earlier this year, the state council passed a new regulation on house requisition and demolition and passed the right to order forced demolition from local governments to the court. Similarly, many other issues concerning public safety is a hot topic on the Internet. We heard about polluted air, polluted water, poisoned food. And guess what, we have faked beef. They have sorts of ingredients that you brush on a piece of chicken or fish, and it turns it to look like beef. And then lately, people are very concerned about cooking oil, because thousands of people have been found [refining] cooking oil from restaurant slop. So all these things have aroused a huge outcry from the Internet. And fortunately, we have seen the government responding more timely and also more frequently to the public concerns.

While young people seem to be very sure about their participation in public policy-making, but sometimes they're a little bit lost in terms of what they want for their personal life. China is soon to pass the U.S. as the number one market for luxury brands -- that's not including the Chinese expenditures in Europe and elsewhere. But you know what, half of those consumers are earning a salary below 2,000 U.S. dollars. They're not rich at all. They're taking those bags and clothes as a sense of identity and social status. And this is a girl explicitly saying on a TV dating show that she would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle. But of course, we do have young people who would still prefer to smile, whether in a BMW or [on] a bicycle.

So in the next picture, you see a very popular phenomenon called "naked" wedding, or "naked" marriage. It does not mean they will wear nothing in the wedding, but it shows that these young couples are ready to get married without a house, without a car, without a diamond ring and without a wedding banquet, to show their commitment to true love. And also, people are doing good through social media. And the first picture showed us that a truck caging 500 homeless and kidnapped dogs for food processing was spotted and stopped on the highway with the whole country watching through microblogging. People were donating money, dog food and offering volunteer work to stop that truck. And after hours of negotiation, 500 dogs were rescued. And here also people are helping to find missing children. A father posted his son's picture onto the Internet. After thousands of resends in relay, the child was found, and we witnessed the reunion of the family through microblogging.

So happiness is the most popular word we have heard through the past two years. Happiness is not only related to personal experiences and personal values, but also, it's about the environment. People are thinking about the following questions: Are we going to sacrifice our environment further to produce higher GDP? How are we going to perform our social and political reform to keep pace with economic growth, to keep sustainability and stability? And also, how capable is the system of self-correctness to keep more people content with all sorts of friction going on at the same time? I guess these are the questions people are going to answer. And our younger generation are going to transform this country while at the same time being transformed themselves.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

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Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China Yang Lan: La generación que rehace China Yang Lan: la generazione che sta rifacendo la Cina Yang Lan: Pokolenie, które zmienia Chiny Yang Lan: A geração que está a refazer a China 杨澜重塑中国的一代人

The night before I was heading for Scotland, I was invited to host the final of "China's Got Talent" show in Shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium. Na noite anterior à minha partida para a Escócia, fui convidado para sediar a final do show "China's Got Talent" em Xangai, com a audiência de 80.000 pessoas no estádio. Guess who was the performing guest? Adivinha quem foi o convidado? Susan Boyle. And I told her, "I'm going to Scotland the next day." She sang beautifully, and she even managed to say a few words in Chinese: 送你葱 So it's not like "hello" or "thank you," that ordinary stuff. Ela cantou lindamente e até conseguiu dizer algumas palavras em chinês: 葱 你 葱 Portanto, não é como "olá" ou "obrigado", essas coisas comuns. It means "green onion for free." Significa "cebola verde de graça". Why did she say that? Por que ela disse isso? Because it was a line from our Chinese parallel Susan Boyle -- a 50-some year-old woman, a vegetable vendor in Shanghai, who loves singing Western opera, but she didn't understand any English or French or Italian, so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in Chinese. Porque era uma linha da nossa paralela chinesa Susan Boyle - uma mulher de 50 anos de idade, uma vendedora de vegetais em Xangai, que adora cantar ópera ocidental, mas como ela não entendia inglês, francês ou italiano, conseguiu para preencher a letra com nomes de vegetais em chinês. (Laughter) And the last sentence of Nessun Dorma that she was singing in the stadium was "green onion for free." (Risos) E a última frase de Nessun Dorma que ela estava cantando no estádio foi "cebola verde de graça". So [as] Susan Boyle was saying that, 80,000 live audience sang together. That was hilarious.

So I guess both Susan Boyle and this vegetable vendor in Shanghai belonged to otherness. Então, acho que Susan Boyle e esse vendedor de vegetais em Xangai pertenciam à alteridade. They were the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment, yet their courage and talent brought them through. Eles eram os menos esperados para serem bem-sucedidos no negócio chamado entretenimento, mas sua coragem e talento os trouxeram adiante. And a show and a platform gave them the stage to realize their dreams. E um show e uma plataforma deram a eles o palco para realizar seus sonhos. Well, being different is not that difficult. Bem, ser diferente não é tão difícil. We are all different from different perspectives. But I think being different is good, because you present a different point of view. You may have the chance to make a difference.

My generation has been very fortunate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of China that has made so many changes in the past 20, 30 years. I remember that in the year of 1990, when I was graduating from college, I was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel in Beijing, Great Wall Sheraton -- it's still there. Lembro que, no ano de 1990, quando me formava na faculdade, estava me candidatando a um emprego no departamento de vendas do primeiro hotel cinco estrelas de Pequim, o Great Wall Sheraton - ele ainda está lá. So after being interrogated by this Japanese manager for a half an hour, he finally said, "So, Miss Yang, do you have any questions to ask me?" Então, depois de ser interrogado por esse gerente japonês por meia hora, ele finalmente disse: "Então, senhorita Yang, você tem alguma pergunta a me fazer?" I summoned my courage and poise and said, "Yes, but could you let me know, what actually do you sell?" Reuni coragem e equilíbrio e disse: "Sim, mas você poderia me informar o que realmente vende?" I didn't have a clue what a sales department was about in a five-star hotel. Eu não tinha idéia do que era um departamento de vendas em um hotel cinco estrelas. That was the first day I set my foot in a five-star hotel. Esse foi o primeiro dia em que pisei em um hotel cinco estrelas.

Around the same time, I was going through an audition -- the first ever open audition by national television in China -- with another thousand college girls. Na mesma época, eu estava passando por uma audição - a primeira audição aberta pela televisão nacional da China - com outras mil meninas de faculdade. The producer told us they were looking for some sweet, innocent and beautiful fresh face. O produtor nos disse que estavam procurando um rosto doce, inocente e bonito. So when it was my turn, I stood up and said, "Why [do] women's personalities on television always have to be beautiful, sweet, innocent and, you know, supportive? Então, quando chegou a minha vez, levantei-me e disse: "Por que as personalidades das mulheres na televisão sempre têm que ser bonitas, doces, inocentes e, você sabe, solidárias? Why can't they have their own ideas and their own voice?" I thought I kind of offended them. Eu pensei que os ofendi. But actually, they were impressed by my words. Mas, na verdade, eles ficaram impressionados com minhas palavras. And so I was in the second round of competition, and then the third and the fourth. After seven rounds of competition, I was the last one to survive it. So I was on a national television prime-time show. Então, eu estava em um programa de televisão nacional no horário nobre. And believe it or not, that was the first show on Chinese television that allowed its hosts to speak out of their own minds without reading an approved script. E, acredite ou não, esse foi o primeiro programa na televisão chinesa que permitiu que seus apresentadores falassem de si mesmos sem ler um roteiro aprovado. (Applause) And my weekly audience at that time was between 200 to 300 million people. (Aplausos) E minha audiência semanal na época era de 200 a 300 milhões de pessoas.

Well after a few years, I decided to go to the U.S. Bem, depois de alguns anos, eu decidi ir para os EUA and Columbia University to pursue my postgraduate studies, and then started my own media company, which was unthought of during the years that I started my career. e a Columbia University, para prosseguir meus estudos de pós-graduação e, em seguida, fundar minha própria empresa de mídia, algo inédito durante os anos em que iniciei minha carreira. So we do a lot of things. I've interviewed more than a thousand people in the past. Eu entrevistei mais de mil pessoas no passado. And sometimes I have young people approaching me say, "Lan, you changed my life," and I feel proud of that. But then we are also so fortunate to witness the transformation of the whole country. Mas também temos a sorte de testemunhar a transformação de todo o país. I was in Beijing's bidding for the Olympic Games. Eu estava na licitação de Pequim para os Jogos Olímpicos. I was representing the Shanghai Expo. Eu estava representando a Shanghai Expo. I saw China embracing the world and vice versa. But then sometimes I'm thinking, what are today's young generation up to? Mas então, às vezes, estou pensando: o que estão fazendo a geração jovem de hoje? How are they different, and what are the differences they are going to make to shape the future of China, or at large, the world? Como eles são diferentes e quais são as diferenças que eles farão para moldar o futuro da China ou do mundo em geral?

So today I want to talk about young people through the platform of social media. First of all, who are they? [What] do they look like? Well this is a girl called Guo Meimei -- 20 years old, beautiful. She showed off her expensive bags, clothes and car on her microblog, which is the Chinese version of Twitter. And she claimed to be the general manager of Red Cross at the Chamber of Commerce. E ela alegou ser a gerente geral da Cruz Vermelha na Câmara de Comércio. She didn't realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning, almost a turmoil, against the credibility of Red Cross. Ela não percebeu que pisou em um nervo sensível e despertou questionamentos nacionais, quase um tumulto, contra a credibilidade da Cruz Vermelha. The controversy was so heated that the Red Cross had to open a press conference to clarify it, and the investigation is going on. A controvérsia foi tão acalorada que a Cruz Vermelha teve que abrir uma conferência de imprensa para esclarecê-la, e a investigação está em andamento.

So far, as of today, we know that she herself made up that title -- probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity. Até agora, sabemos até hoje que ela mesma criou esse título - provavelmente porque se sente orgulhosa de estar associada à caridade. All those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boyfriend, who used to be a board member in a subdivision of Red Cross at Chamber of Commerce. Todos esses itens caros foram dados a ela como presente pelo namorado, que costumava ser membro do conselho em uma subdivisão da Cruz Vermelha na Câmara de Comércio. It's very complicated to explain. But anyway, the public still doesn't buy it. Mas de qualquer maneira, o público ainda não compra. It is still boiling. Ainda está fervendo. It shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions, which lacked transparency in the past. Isso nos mostra uma desconfiança geral do governo ou de instituições apoiadas pelo governo, que careciam de transparência no passado. And also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog.

Microblog boomed in the year of 2010, with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled. O microblog cresceu no ano de 2010, com os visitantes dobrando e o tempo gasto com isso triplicou. Sina.com, a major news portal, alone has more than 140 million microbloggers. Só o Sina.com, um importante portal de notícias, possui mais de 140 milhões de microbloggers. On Tencent, 200 million. The most popular blogger -- it's not me -- it's a movie star, and she has more than 9.5 million followers, or fans. About 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people, under 30 years old. And because, as you know, the traditional media is still heavily controlled by the government, social media offers an opening to let the steam out a little bit. E porque, como você sabe, a mídia tradicional ainda é fortemente controlada pelo governo, a mídia social oferece uma abertura para deixar o vapor sair um pouco. But because you don't have many other openings, the heat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong, active and even violent. So through microblogging, we are able to understand Chinese youth even better. So how are they different? First of all, most of them were born in the 80s and 90s, under the one-child policy. Primeiro de tudo, a maioria deles nasceu nos anos 80 e 90, sob a política do filho único. And because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls, now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women. E por causa do aborto selecionado por famílias que favoreciam meninos para meninas, agora acabamos com 30 milhões a mais de homens do que mulheres. That could pose a potential danger to the society, but who knows; we're in a globalized world, so they can look for girlfriends from other countries. Isso poderia representar um perigo potencial para a sociedade, mas quem sabe; estamos em um mundo globalizado, para que possam procurar namoradas de outros países. Most of them have fairly good education. A maioria deles tem uma educação bastante boa. The illiteracy rate in China among this generation is under one percent. A taxa de analfabetismo na China entre esta geração é inferior a um por cento. In cities, 80 percent of kids go to college. But they are facing an aging China with a population above 65 years old coming up with seven-point-some percent this year, and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030. Mas eles estão enfrentando uma China envelhecida, com uma população acima de 65 anos, chegando a sete pontos - alguns por cento este ano, e cerca de 15 por cento até o ano de 2030. And you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially, and taking care of them when they're sick. E você sabe que temos a tradição de que as gerações mais novas apóiam financeiramente os idosos e cuidam deles quando estão doentes. So it means young couples will have to support four parents who have a life expectancy of 73 years old. Isso significa que casais jovens terão que apoiar quatro pais que têm uma expectativa de vida de 73 anos.

So making a living is not that easy for young people. College graduates are not in short supply. Os graduados não são escassos. In urban areas, college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 U.S. Nas áreas urbanas, os graduados acham que o salário inicial é de cerca de 400 US dollars a month, while the average rent is above $500. So what do they do? They have to share space -- squeezed in very limited space to save money -- and they call themselves "tribe of ants." Eles precisam dividir o espaço - espremido em um espaço muito limitado para economizar dinheiro - e se autodenominam "tribo de formigas". And for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment, they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their first apartment. E para aqueles que estão prontos para se casar e comprar seu apartamento, eles descobriram que precisam trabalhar por 30 a 40 anos para comprar seu primeiro apartamento. That ratio in America would only cost a couple five years to earn, but in China it's 30 to 40 years with the skyrocketing real estate price. Essa proporção na América custaria apenas cinco anos para ganhar, mas na China são 30 a 40 anos com o preço disparado dos imóveis. Among the 200 million migrant workers, 60 percent of them are young people. They find themselves sort of sandwiched between the urban areas and the rural areas. Eles se encontram meio que imprensados entre as áreas urbanas e as rurais. Most of them don't want to go back to the countryside, but they don't have the sense of belonging. A maioria deles não quer voltar para o campo, mas não tem o sentimento de pertencer. They work for longer hours with less income, less social welfare. And they're more vulnerable to job losses, subject to inflation, tightening loans from banks, appreciation of the renminbi, or decline of demand from Europe or America for the products they produce. E são mais vulneráveis a perdas de empregos, sujeitas à inflação, à contração de empréstimos dos bancos, à valorização do renminbi ou ao declínio da demanda da Europa ou da América pelos produtos que produzem. Last year, though, an appalling incident in a southern OEM manufacturing compound in China: 13 young workers in their late teens and early 20s committed suicide, just one by one like causing a contagious disease. No ano passado, porém, um incidente terrível em um complexo de fabricação OEM do sul da China: 13 jovens trabalhadores no final da adolescência e no início dos 20 anos cometeram suicídio, apenas um por um como causar uma doença contagiosa. But they died because of all different personal reasons. But this whole incident aroused a huge outcry from society about the isolation, both physical and mental, of these migrant workers. Mas todo esse incidente despertou um enorme clamor da sociedade sobre o isolamento, físico e mental, desses trabalhadores migrantes.

For those who do return back to the countryside, they find themselves very welcome locally, because with the knowledge, skills and networks they have learned in the cities, with the assistance of the Internet, they're able to create more jobs, upgrade local agriculture and create new business in the less developed market. So for the past few years, the coastal areas, they found themselves in a shortage of labor. Nos últimos anos, nas áreas costeiras, eles se viram em falta de mão-de-obra.

These diagrams show a more general social background. The first one is the Engels coefficient, which explains that the cost of daily necessities has dropped its percentage all through the past decade, in terms of family income, to about 37-some percent. O primeiro é o coeficiente de Engels, que explica que o custo das necessidades diárias diminuiu sua porcentagem ao longo da última década, em termos de renda familiar, para cerca de 37%. But then in the last two years, it goes up again to 39 percent, indicating a rising living cost. The Gini coefficient has already passed the dangerous line of 0.4. Now it's 0.5 -- even worse than that in America -- showing us the income inequality. Agora é 0,5 - ainda pior do que nos Estados Unidos - nos mostrando a desigualdade de renda. And so you see this whole society getting frustrated about losing some of its mobility. E você vê toda a sociedade frustrada por perder parte de sua mobilidade. And also, the bitterness and even resentment towards the rich and the powerful is quite widespread. E também, a amargura e até o ressentimento em relação aos ricos e poderosos são bastante difundidos. So any accusations of corruption or backdoor dealings between authorities or business would arouse a social outcry or even unrest. Portanto, quaisquer acusações de corrupção ou transações secretas entre autoridades ou empresas provocariam protestos sociais ou até inquietação.

So through some of the hottest topics on microblogging, we can see what young people care most about. Assim, através de alguns dos tópicos mais quentes do microblog, podemos ver o que os jovens mais se importam. Social justice and government accountability runs the first in what they demand. A justiça social e a responsabilidade governamental são as primeiras no que eles exigem. For the past decade or so, a massive urbanization and development have let us witness a lot of reports on the forced demolition of private property. Nos últimos dez anos, uma urbanização e desenvolvimento maciços nos deixaram testemunhar muitos relatórios sobre a demolição forçada de propriedades privadas. And it has aroused huge anger and frustration among our young generation. Sometimes people get killed, and sometimes people set themselves on fire to protest. Às vezes as pessoas são mortas, e outras às vezes pegam fogo para protestar. So when these incidents are reported more and more frequently on the Internet, people cry for the government to take actions to stop this. Portanto, quando esses incidentes são relatados com mais e mais frequência na Internet, as pessoas reclamam que o governo tome medidas para impedir isso.

So the good news is that earlier this year, the state council passed a new regulation on house requisition and demolition and passed the right to order forced demolition from local governments to the court. Portanto, a boa notícia é que, no início deste ano, o conselho estadual aprovou um novo regulamento sobre requisição e demolição de casas e aprovou o direito de ordenar demolições forçadas dos governos locais ao tribunal. Similarly, many other issues concerning public safety is a hot topic on the Internet. We heard about polluted air, polluted water, poisoned food. And guess what, we have faked beef. They have sorts of ingredients that you brush on a piece of chicken or fish, and it turns it to look like beef. And then lately, people are very concerned about cooking oil, because thousands of people have been found [refining] cooking oil from restaurant slop. E, ultimamente, as pessoas estão muito preocupadas com o óleo de cozinha, porque milhares de pessoas foram encontradas [refinando] o óleo de cozinha da piscina de restaurantes. So all these things have aroused a huge outcry from the Internet. Então, todas essas coisas despertaram um enorme clamor da Internet. And fortunately, we have seen the government responding more timely and also more frequently to the public concerns. E, felizmente, vimos o governo responder com mais rapidez e também com mais frequência às preocupações do público.

While young people seem to be very sure about their participation in public policy-making, but sometimes they're a little bit lost in terms of what they want for their personal life. China is soon to pass the U.S. as the number one market for luxury brands -- that's not including the Chinese expenditures in Europe and elsewhere. como o mercado número um de marcas de luxo - isso não inclui as despesas chinesas na Europa e em outros lugares. But you know what, half of those consumers are earning a salary below 2,000 U.S. dollars. They're not rich at all. They're taking those bags and clothes as a sense of identity and social status. Eles estão levando essas malas e roupas como um senso de identidade e status social. And this is a girl explicitly saying on a TV dating show that she would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle. E essa é uma garota dizendo explicitamente em um programa de namoro na TV que preferia chorar em um BMW a sorrir em uma bicicleta. But of course, we do have young people who would still prefer to smile, whether in a BMW or [on] a bicycle. Mas é claro que temos jovens que ainda preferem sorrir, seja em uma BMW ou em uma bicicleta.

So in the next picture, you see a very popular phenomenon called "naked" wedding, or "naked" marriage. Então, na próxima foto, você vê um fenômeno muito popular chamado casamento "nu" ou casamento "nu". It does not mean they will wear nothing in the wedding, but it shows that these young couples are ready to get married without a house, without a car, without a diamond ring and without a wedding banquet, to show their commitment to true love. And also, people are doing good through social media. E também, as pessoas estão fazendo o bem através da mídia social. And the first picture showed us that a truck caging 500 homeless and kidnapped dogs for food processing was spotted and stopped on the highway with the whole country watching through microblogging. E a primeira foto nos mostrou que um caminhão enjaulado com 500 cães desabrigados e seqüestrados para processamento de alimentos foi avistado e parado na estrada com o país inteiro assistindo através de microblogging. People were donating money, dog food and offering volunteer work to stop that truck. As pessoas estavam doando dinheiro, comida de cachorro e oferecendo trabalho voluntário para parar o caminhão. And after hours of negotiation, 500 dogs were rescued. E após horas de negociação, 500 cães foram resgatados. And here also people are helping to find missing children. A father posted his son's picture onto the Internet. Um pai postou a foto de seu filho na Internet. After thousands of resends in relay, the child was found, and we witnessed the reunion of the family through microblogging. Depois de milhares de reenvios em revezamento, a criança foi encontrada e testemunhamos a reunião da família através de microblogging.

So happiness is the most popular word we have heard through the past two years. Portanto, felicidade é a palavra mais popular que ouvimos nos últimos dois anos. Happiness is not only related to personal experiences and personal values, but also, it's about the environment. A felicidade não está relacionada apenas a experiências e valores pessoais, mas também ao meio ambiente. People are thinking about the following questions: Are we going to sacrifice our environment further to produce higher GDP? As pessoas estão pensando nas seguintes perguntas: Vamos sacrificar ainda mais nosso ambiente para produzir um PIB mais alto? How are we going to perform our social and political reform to keep pace with economic growth, to keep sustainability and stability? Como vamos realizar nossa reforma social e política para acompanhar o crescimento econômico, manter a sustentabilidade e a estabilidade? And also, how capable is the system of self-correctness to keep more people content with all sorts of friction going on at the same time? E também, qual é a capacidade do sistema de autocorreção para manter mais pessoas satisfeitas com todos os tipos de atrito acontecendo ao mesmo tempo? I guess these are the questions people are going to answer. And our younger generation are going to transform this country while at the same time being transformed themselves. E nossa geração mais jovem vai transformar esse país e ao mesmo tempo se transformar.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)