By Go Takayama

This is part of a series of posts ‘Demystifying Lower Tier China’.

It was already late evening as a taxi drove me from an airport in the city of Xuzhou. From a hotel we stayed about five minutes walk, there was a construction site at one corner of an intersection where I saw a white logo growing in the dark said ‘Wal-Mart.’ I shouldn’t surprise anymore seeing a global corporation like Wal-Mart in the low tier cities of China (Wal-Mart now has over 146 stores in China, covering 86 cities). After my first couple days in Xuzhou, I came to realize that my presumption of Xuzhou in many ways of an ‘underdevelopment low tier third city’ didn’t quite fit.

In fact, the city still remains being underdevelopment in terms of its infrastructure, economy, transportation, as well as city culture such as nightlife, entertainment, dining and etc. But what went wrong about my prejudgement revealed some of the fast growing youth culture in Xuzhou. I met a bunch of hi-hop dancers, skateboarders, a freestyle rapper, groupies, and rollerbladers. Besides this, a boy at a local music contest, who wore colored contact lens, and high school kids hanging out in a TV idol shop raised my awareness of the city’s growing potential for the youth culture.

While young people in Xuzhou enjoy more matured youth culture than some of previous cities I visited, the city has one mutual thing, that keeps discovering in every low tier city. It’s a circumstance, in which youths get confused about their life, and lack of a dream or aspiration while living under continuous pressure from their parents. This absence of a sense of purpose deepens their inadequate self-esteem, motivation, and confidence. As the city develops, enriching social life and entertainment, there might be counter increase of youths, who feel being left out or get lost in the fast transforming city.

(click on the photos for original size photos)

01. Wang Lu Qiao, 16, a freshman of Xuzhou Wenhua YiShu Xuexiao high school, stretches her body at the end of her gymnastic class in the afternoon. In the school, variety of dance lessons are offered such as hip-hop, ballet, and Chinese national dance.

02. Members of a local skateboard team, Jumper, hang out evening in the city.

03. Like in many other low tier cities in China, the rapid development of new life style means the destruction of the old. The newly development site is captured in the heart of Xuzhou city.

04. The students of Xuzhou Wenhua YiShu Xuexiao high school participate in a ballet dance class. According to our interview and research, a number of the enrollment of the youth in an art school increases every year. Only the kids with an affluent family background can afford to enter such schools.

05. Wang Jia, 21, of Xuzhou poses for a camera with his tattoo — Lose Family — which, he decided to have for a memory of his lost grandmother.

06. The students of Rui Xin, a local hip-hop dance company, rehearsal for an upcoming dance contest. In Xuzhou and other low tier cities, the youth entertainments are strictly limited to KTV, skateboarding, rollerblading, dancing, or going to a bar. The owner of Rui Xin said that the company not only provide social space for youths to express themselves, but also an opportunity to build their creativity and confidence.

07. A couple from Xuzhou visits one of many nail salon booths that form a long straight line in an underground shopping mall.

08. A customer in a hair salon is captured through the store’s window.

09. One of the participants at a local music contest, held in a shopping district, wears light blue colored contact lens. Men’s beauty care and grooming products become more popular than ever.

10. The enthusiastic fans cheer a dance team, Chongshen (reborn), as the team marches into the stage during a local music contest.

11. Xu Teng He from Xuzhou, shows off his skateboard trick. The members of a local skateboard team, Jumper, gather regularly in the city to practice and get socialized.

12. Wang Jia, a Xuzhou local freestyle rapper, flows with the beat while showing off his skill to his friend, Mou Jia Huan, 15, as the two and their friends hang out in the city.

13. A girl studies in her room of an apartment, which is one of many typical city housing apartments. Her family rents it as their second house for its locational convenience.

14. So he calls himself, Noname, 19, describes his life as boring, lonely, and confused. He is an active member of a local skateboard team, and plays guitar and sells clothes on the Internet; however, he says that he feels nothing really matter to him. In the afternoon at his friend’s skateboard shop, he takes a moment lying down on the floor.

For more about Xuzhou report and pictures, please visit my blog: http://www.blog-jp-gotakayamaphoto.com/

Filed under: Lower tier youth, What's Up?, China youth culture, Go Takayama, lower tier cities, photo