{"id":58249,"date":"2023-09-11T10:09:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T01:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/sep\/11\/have-we-reached-peak-china-how-the-booming-middle-class-hit-a-brick-wall"},"modified":"2023-09-11T10:09:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T01:09:34","slug":"have-we-reached-peak-china-how-the-booming-middle-class-hit-a-brick-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=58249","title":{"rendered":"Have we reached peak China? How the booming middle class hit a brick wall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Facing a slowing economy and a less secure jobs market, China\u2019s educated elite are left negotiating a new central bargain with the government <\/p>\n<p>Holding her newborn daughter, Lynne, 33, feels apprehensive about the future. Her elder son, though adorable, is already draining the family coffers and he hasn\u2019t even started school yet. His private kindergarten in Beijing costs 80,000 yuan (US$11,ooo) a year. Extracurricular classes, including 10 hours a week of English, sports, painting and online tutorials, cost another 60,000 yuan (US$8,300). She already knows that his five-month-old sister won\u2019t get the same resources.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t have the energy to <em>jiwa<\/em> again,\u201d she says, using a Mandarin term for helicopter parenting. She longs for her home town of Xingtai, a small city in Hebei province, where school fees are a fraction of what they are in Beijing, and where life is \u201cpeaceful and relaxed and happy\u201d.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/sep\/11\/have-we-reached-peak-china-how-the-booming-middle-class-hit-a-brick-wall\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facing a slowing economy and a less secure jobs market, China\u2019s educated elite are left negotiating a new central bargain with the government Holding her newborn daughter, Lynne, 33, feels apprehensive about the future. Her elder son, though adorable, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3580,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,556,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-chinese-economy","category-xi-jinping"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58250,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249\/revisions\/58250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}