The Chinese youth movement ditching big cities for the coast

In ’Fissure of a Sweetdream’ photographer Jialin Yan documents the growing number of Chinese young people turning their backs on careerist grind in favour of a slower pace of life on Hainan Island.

A couple of years ago, Jialin Yan was riding her motorbike down a highway with some friends in Wanning, China, when suddenly, it came to a spluttering halt. Set on Hainan Island off the country’s south coast, Wanning is best known for its sandy beaches, subtropical scenery and vibrant surfing community, but that day Yan’s group of friends had decided to take an excursion out to explore the nearby mountains.

It left them stranded, a long way from their homes. “I was quite anxious – it was in the middle of nowhere and everyone was there waiting for me,” she recalls. “Back in my previous life pattern, I was so afraid of people waiting for me because it meant that there was a problem, so I felt really guilty.”

But as the group waited for someone to turn up who could assist with the bike, her friends pulled out a Bluetooth speaker and a few beers, sitting by the highway and cracking jokes without coming close to uttering a complaint. Having quit her job in Shanghai working for a tech firm earlier that year, Yan had been so used to the stresses of big city life and corporate relationships, and seeing those around her react in such a relaxed manner was an eye-opening, refreshing moment of clarity.

“They were really chill, just doing their stuff – I was really shocked and I’m still grateful for that,” Yan continues. “Then later on, the store owner drove a mini truck over, put the motorbike on it and drove me back. I could see full views of tropical plants and mountains, with the humid wind through my face and body, and I felt like I could finally cool down from my anxious life.”

Now a photographer, Yan’s newly published photobook Fissure of a Sweetdream, dives into her time in Wanning, where she would stay for months at a time over the course of 12 months, hanging out and making pictures. Having first travelled to the area in early 2022 – as much of China continued to face tough cycles of lockdown – she had joined an increasingly growing population of young Chinese people choosing to turn their backs on big city life and careerist grinds in favour of the slower pace of life on the island.

Amid an unemployment crisis among Chinese young people – one in five between the ages of 16 and 24 are reportedly jobless – a movement among Chinese Gen Z and millennials is seeing people turn back to rural areas, in search of simpler ways of life. In doing so, they’ve formed their own ways of living while bucking China’s trend of rapid urbanisation over the past decades, which has seen the rise of packed density supercities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and more.

Her book provides a sun-kissed, balmy portrait of their lives and the area’s countercultural youth – many attracted to Wanning by the burgeoning surf scene and its rejection of mainstream Chinese society and pressures. It features warm shots of her friends hanging out by the sea, watching waves and giving each other DIY haircuts, with Wanning’s paradisiacal backdrop forming a key, consistent character.

“Surfing [has grown] because of the pandemic,” Yan explains. “Previously, many Chinese people loved to travel abroad, but since they no longer had the option to, many started trying to do more outdoor things like hiking and skateboarding – a lot of my friends got into surfing because it’s like skateboarding the ocean.”

It makes for a slower, less cluttered day-to-day existence. “The Wanning vibe was so chill that you wouldn’t even think about your identity – it’s like a Chinese Ibiza, but more chill,” she continues. “People just do simple things – go surfing, have meals, do some drinking, then go back to sleep. Many are surfing coaches, and you can’t find jobs like that in the city.”

But just below the waterline of the idyllic pictures lies a tension, hidden among Wanning’s palm trees and golden beaches. The book’s title provides a hint. “At first, I felt like it was heaven. It was less crowded [than the big city], everybody just seemed so nice there, and you could never see any pressure,” she explains. “Nobody was talking about jobs, careers, they just focused on their life at the moment – they cared about the waves, the sunshine, the surfing.

“But later on, after half a year, it felt like a bubble,” she continues. “Nobody has a sustainable life there, everyone started talking about their money issues, with living expenses becoming higher and higher as the area became more popular, and also people had bad experiences related to their personal lives – it’s quite a messy [place]. So on the surface Wanning is this really beautiful place, but a lot of my friends had started to move out after one or two years. That’s why it’s like a fissure from the sweet dream.”