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Social media in China: The new hipster grannies from Beijing

2022-12-26T10:44:23.121Z


Fashion and fun instead of looking after grandchildren and retreat: With successful social media accounts, grandmas and grandpas in China are showing a new image of older people.


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The "Glamma Beijing" in Beijing: The four friends are all over 60 - and internet stars

Photo: Gilles Sabrié / The New York Times / Redux / laif

We could start this little text with statistics about over 60 year olds or with the words retirement home or average retirement age.

But no, no, no, no, we start with this quote:

»If you are always afraid of aging, your life is grey.

Of course you're getting older, you get wrinkles, you don't have as much energy or you're not in as good shape.

But you can't defend yourself against that.

So why not look forward to it?”

That's what Lin Wei said, a pensioner, 65 years old, Chinese from Beijing.

She has been a celebrity on the Chinese internet for a few years.

Together with her three friends.

The four, who are all over 60, call themselves the "Glamma Beijing", a neologism of "glamor" and "ma", meaning glamorous

Moms – and regularly upload videos in the Chinese TikTok version Douyin under this name.

Her account is about fashion, make-up and being beautiful.

The hype started when the friends catwalked down a shopping district in Beijing in traditional Qipao dresses and high heels at the beginning of the pandemic and posted a video of it online.

Since then, the four have been going regularly to photo shoots, presenting fashion and showing an image of older women that you have rarely seen before in China - like in so many other places in the world: women with gray hair and wrinkles who do not have grandchildren in a pram or sitting in the ENT doctor's waiting room, but are interested in styling and enjoy their bodies.

For grandmothers in particular, the traditional rule in China is that they continue to do housework in the extended family for as long as they can and take care of their grandchildren while their parents work and earn money.

Photographer Gilles Sabrié, who lives in Beijing, accompanied the women a few months ago;

a selection of his pictures from that time first appeared in the »New York Times«.

Sabrié says: »The women show that growing old does not necessarily mean slowly disappearing from public life.

It can also mean: Finally you have time to do something for yourself.

To have fun!"

With their appearances on the Internet, the Chinese pensioners undermine a widespread assumption: that one has to be afraid of old age.

That you become lonely, insignificant and at least a little sad.

As if the word "aging" only existed in combination with the description "anti" as something to be fought.

Like the »Glamma Beijing«, more and more older Chinese are now presenting

their everyday life online to an audience of millions.

Especially in the past three years, when the Chinese government had restricted almost all activities due to the extremely strict Covid measures, many people were apparently looking for distraction and creativity on the Internet.

Some upload dance videos, others film themselves playing video games at the age of almost 90.

There is retiree Su Min, a former factory worker, grandmother, from Henan Province.

She embarked on a solo tour of China, streamed it, and became a celebrity across the country.

Online, she not only spoke about beautiful landscapes, but also about her abusive marriage, about being fed up with being a housewife and how great her new freedom is.

There's the TV show "Blind Date and Fall in Love," a dating show where all the contestants are over 50.

Or the “Beijing Dama Have Something to Say” platform, on which women between the ages of 60 and 80 talk in hundreds of videos about their everyday lives and the good and bad about being old in China.

Their audience: often people their own age, but also 30-year-olds, says the photographer Sabrié.

"When I accompanied the 'Glamma Beijing' women, young people kept coming who wanted a selfie and said the women were their role models," he says.

Of course, continued Sabrié, the active elderly on the Internet could not hide China's huge demographic challenge: the birth rates in the country are low, the elderly are getting older, and as a result an ever larger social group in comparison: In 2019, 260 million survivors 60-year-olds in the country with a total of 1.4 billion people.

The World Health Organization estimates that by 2040, 28 percent of China's population will be 60 or older.

The model that many have relied on in the past – old-age provision as a family matter, the young take care of the old – no longer works in many cases.

Those who are aging now started their families in the 1980s, a time when the government's strict one-child policy applied.

However, a single child cannot necessarily support two parents.

As a result, many retirees are on their own, slide into poverty in old age, many are single, widowed or divorced.

There are not enough retirement homes.

As a result, many older Chinese suffer from depression and loneliness.

People over 70 in China are four times more likely to commit suicide than younger age groups.

Can the successful Insta grandmas and grandpas be an answer to the aging Chinese society?

At least that's how Sun Yang, a former teacher and now a member of Glamma Beijing, sees it.

Photographer Sabrié visited her at home where she was filling dumplings with her granddaughter.

Sun told him it's important that their generation speak out digitally.

To draw attention to the problems of pensioners and to show that being old is not the same as being a burden.

That you can continue to be a responsible citizen and help shape it.

More than half of the elderly in China are active in social networks.

have there

them: a place to meet.

For an exchange.

To find role models.

Sabrié visited yet another group of recently famous older women.

She calls herself »Sister Wang Is Coming« and is very different from »Glamma Beijing«, but just as successful.

They are country women who live in a village outside of Beijing - and rap.

About food.

About cooking.

One of their songs is called "Spicy Hot Pot Real Rap," and it's like a rapped recipe.

The women film themselves singing, in the music videos they often stand in meadows, in the forest, in their gardens, harvesting radishes and cabbage.

Often a grandson helps with the filming.

The group, which stands out in nature in baggy shirts, Velcro shoes and comfortable pants, is not about style and clothes.

It's about great fun.

Fun that they want to pass on to their followers.

Especially those who are lonely and sitting at home in their seventies, logged in to TikTok.

This contribution is part of the Global Society project

Expand areaWhat is the Global Society project?

Under the title »Global Society«, reporters from

Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe

report on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development.

The reports, analyses, photo series, videos and podcasts appear in a separate section in the foreign section of SPIEGEL.

The project is long-term and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

A detailed FAQ with questions and answers about the project can be found here.

AreaWhat does the funding look like in concrete terms?open

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has been supporting the project since 2019 for an initial period of three years with a total of around 2.3 million euros - around 760,000 euros per year.

In 2021, the project was extended by almost three and a half years until spring 2025 under the same conditions.

AreaIs the journalistic content independent of the foundation?open

Yes.

The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.

AreaDo other media also have similar projects?open

Yes.

Major European media outlets such as The Guardian and El País have set up similar sections on their news sites with Global Development and Planeta Futuro, respectively, with the support of the Gates Foundation.

Did SPIEGEL already have similar projects? open

In recent years, DER SPIEGEL has already implemented two projects with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: the "Expedition ÜberMorgen" on global sustainability goals and the journalistic refugee project "The New Arrivals", within the framework of which several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and flight have been created.

Expand areaWhere can I find all publications on the Global Society?

The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL on the Global Society topic page.

Source: spiegel

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