Name_______________________ Class: ____( ) Date:_________

Newspaper Assignment

Hong Kong official says city’s youth are ‘lying flat’ and being ‘self-indulgent’

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung accused the city’s youth of “lying
flat”, rejecting hard work and adopting an unconcerned attitude towards life in a blog post last
November. He described this mentality as “passive and self-indulgent”.

“This passive mindset makes people feel dispirited, and it ... hinders the development of society,”
Yeung warned in his blog post.

Lying flat became quite popular in mainland China, especially among the younger generation, after
a viral online post in April 2021.

On the Baidu Tieba social media platform, a man in his 20s named Luo Huazhong wrote about how
he had embraced this lifestyle of minimalism for two years. Luo explained how he was living a low-
desire, zero-pressure lifestyle without a stable job, while staying with his parents in Zhejiang
province.

“Lying flat is a state of mind ... I feel that many things are not worthy of my attention and energy,”
Luo said.

His mindset struck a chord with much of mainland China’s young and disenchanted workforce that
had been hit particularly hard by the nation’s economic slowdown and the coronavirus pandemic.
From white-collar workers to university students, frustrated young people took to social media to
declare themselves “lying flat youth”.

Authorities have been scrambling to suppress the trend, fearing that it could challenge social and
economic order. According to economists and social
commentators, lying flat in the long run could affect
mainland China’s economy. It might also lower the
country’s birth rate and threaten its social welfare system.

It even warranted a public condemnation by President Xi

The “lying flat” attitude is characterised by a
mindset of doing just enough to get by and
striving for nothing more. Photo:
Shutterstock
Lau Ka-kuen
Jinping. “It is necessary to prevent the stagnation of the
social class ... and form an environment for improvement
in which everyone participates, avoiding ... lying flat,”
Xi said in comments published in October 2021 by the
Communist Party’s journal on political theory, Qiushi.
Illustration:

News: Young Hongkongers’ different life choices don’t mean they lack drive or creativity,
experts say

Some young Hongkongers are adopting the “lying flat” lifestyle, choosing to reject the rat race and
hard work and preferring to earn only enough for their basic needs.
One example is University of Hong Kong student Tang Tsz-wa*, 22, who said he was unbothered
by what life might hold after graduation.

Tang said: “I won’t look for a job with a high salary or high status. As long as I don’t starve or work
too hard because of the job, I’ll be OK with it.”

Tang Tsz-wa* enjoys reading books, as part of his laid-back lifestyle. Photo: Sammy Heung

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung has attacked lying flat as “passive and self-
indulgent”.

However, some experts disagreed with Yeung that young Hongkongers were lazy or lying flat. They
stressed that young people’s lifestyles might be different, but they did not lack drive or creativity.

Veteran social worker Chan Ka-ling, an assistant executive director of Youth Outreach, an NGO
helping at-risk youth, dismissed criticism of young people for choosing a different pace of life.

She felt that part of the reason young people were making different choices these days was that more
were coming from complex family backgrounds. These complicated arrangements left some young
people distressed and distorted their values, which had an impact on their relationships too.

Teacher Amy Chan*, a counsellor in a Kowloon West secondary school with mainly low-income
students, said lying flat did not equate to laziness.

Chan said many of her students who came from tiny, cramped homes desperately wanted to climb
the social ladder but struggled to cope with the demands of six years of secondary school. More
adolescents were stressed and dealing with mental health issues these days, she added.

Teens could develop a more positive outlook if teachers had more time to talk to students, she added,
but most teachers were already overloaded with responsibilities.

Meanwhile, a recent study by Chinese University found that 803 respondents aged between 15 and
30 gave average scores of only 2.95 and 4.76 out of 10 for their level of optimism about Hong
Kong and their future, respectively. Both scores fell from 4.37 and 6.02 in 2018.
* Names changed at interviewees’ request.

Issue: Hong Kong schools must infuse civic, moral values into all subjects to overcome laziness

To address a “passive and self-indulgent mindset” in some young people, Hong Kong schools will
need to infuse into all subjects civic values such as diligence, under a revised framework on civic
values issued in November 2021.

Replacing the eight-page “Moral and Civic Education Curriculum Framework” of 2008, the revised
guidelines add three new values, namely law-abidingness, empathy and diligence, to the existing
seven – perseverance, respect for others, responsibility, national identity, commitment, integrity and
care for others.

In an earlier blog post, Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung wrote that the new
framework was needed as he was worried by the self-indulgent attitude of some young people and
the trending idea of “lying flat”.

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung has attacked the idea of “lying flat”. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

The “Values Education Framework”, as the new guidelines are known, echoed that language,
suggesting young people today had expectations of “reaping without sowing”, and a “fluke mindset”
that left life up to chance. It also expressed hope that students would work hard and contribute to
their families, society and country.

However, Gary Tang Kin-yat, an assistant professor at the Department of Social Science of Hang
Seng University disagreed that adding “diligence” to the list of values schools must teach would
address the issues of inertia, or lack of motivation or ambition associated with lying flat.

“We do not train students to be diligent but motivate them to discover their passions and interests,”
he said.

If young Hongkongers were rejecting the usual choices, Tang added, it could be because they were
in a state of hopelessness from gaining no recognition for non-academic areas in which they excelled.

Final-year sociology student Emalia Au Yeung*, 22, said: “It is important to teach students about
diligence so they can survive in society, but I don’t think diligence and lying flat have a cause and
effect relationship.”

A student of the University of Toronto in Canada, she said her priority after graduation would be
comfort, not a high salary or promising career.

“I won’t say I’m lazy,” she said. “I just don’t want to compete with others. I don’t want to make
money that I won’t have time to spend.”
* Name changed at interviewee’s request

Adapted from: Young Post, SCMPhttps://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/news/hong-

kong/article/3166470/hot-topics-while-government-worries-about-hong-kong
Part 1:

Highlight 5words/expressions which are worth learning.

Look up the words/expressions in the dictionary and include the following items
specified below:

1. The word/expression
2. The Part of Speech of the word
3. The definition
4. A sentence from the dictionary demonstrating the use of the
word/expression

Part 2:

The concept of lying flat has been criticized by some as “passive and self- indulgent”
while others disagreed that the youth today is lazy or lying flat. What is your opinion?
Write a letter to the editor stating two reasons to support your side of the argument.
(approx. 300 words)