MCLC: Fu'erdai book

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Fu’erdai book
Source: China Daily (4/29/15)
The burden of wealth
By Xing Yi (China Daily)
The children of China’s wealthy are often criticized for their extravagant lifestyle, but a new book paints a more complex picture of the group. Xing Yi reports.
Fu’erdai [富二代], the Chinese slang for “second-generation rich”, refers to the children of wealthy people.
With their extravagant lifestyle, these heirs to great fortunes often come under public scrutiny for their supposed moral failings, but their lives are also far removed and often mysterious to the public.
Children of the Wealth, a nonfiction book exposing the real lives of six fu’erdai, will be published in May.
“I want readers to really understand this group instead of simply labeling them,” says author Wang Daqi [王大骐], who is the son of Wang Zhigang, a well-known strategic consultant who owns a company that provides advice to local governments on land development.
Wang thinks the media’s reporting on rich youth who flaunt their extravagant lifestyle with sports cars, designer bags and other luxury possessions is simply feeding into a stereotype.
“They (reports) are shallow and superficial,” says Wang. “People and media consume their stories just as they consume celebrity gossip.”
Wang doesn’t like to be called a fu’erdai, but he has no choice but to use the term. He does, however, omit the character fu, which means rich. “How does wealth relate to me? Without wealth, who am I?” These are the questions Wang has been struggling with throughout his life.
Born in 1985, Wang spent his childhood in Guangzhou. He attended high school in the United States and college in Canada. Sending children overseas for their education is common for wealthy Chinese families.
It was not until 2012 that Wang had the opportunity to meet other fu’erdai, when he attended a seven-day leadership training course for Chinese private entrepreneurs in Hawaii.
“There were seven or eight young people – some came with their parents and some came alone,” recalls Wang. “Because we were of a similar age, we had courses in the day and chatted at night, sharing stories of each others’ lives. We talked a lot about what should we do in the future and our relationships with our parents.”
At the time, Wang was working as a journalist at Southern People Weekly, a Guangzhou-based popular magazine focused on people profiles. Wang decided to write a book about China’s wealthy youth in an attempt to correct “misunderstandings” about these sons and daughters of privilege.
“The first day I arrived at the office, one colleague said: ‘Are you coming to play around or just experience life? Do you guys really want to work?'” recalls Wang.
But Wang continued to spend time with his six new friends whom he had met in Hawaii. Because he shares a similar background, he earned the trust of this group of fu’erdai, and was able to get rare interviews with them. When Wang started to write the book, he used pseudonyms to protect their privacy.
The six people he wrote about have one thing in common – all of them are in the transitional period of taking control of family businesses and there is a lot of tension between them and the previous generation.
In the book, Li Bin, the son of a real estate developer, is helping to manage some of his father’s new projects. What he really wants to do is to enter the entertainment industry and also build a first-class motor racing track.
The daughter of a textile manufacturer, An Ran, has to maintain the image of a strong and confident boss before her mother’s former employees. She took control of the company six months ago, and the divorced woman has juggled running the company with caring for her 4-year-old son.
The book also documents the story of a man who goes by the nickname “little god of gamblers”. He was forced to take control of the family business when his father was killed by a robber in a house break-in.
“The people from the 1950s are about to retire,” says Wang, referring to the first generation of private entrepreneurs who rose after the country’s reform and opening-up in 1978.
For the first generation, passing on the family wealth is something new to them, as there is little precedent within China in living memory.
“In the coming decade, the batons of the family business are being passed to the second generation, and it will be a time full of stories,” says Wang.
For the second generation, how to deal with inherited wealth is a great challenge because the children of the wealthy can also become lonely.
“When you enter their lives, you will find material opulence on the one hand and spiritual hollowness on the other,” says Wang. “They lack the imagination to use wealth to do meaningful things.”
Wang wants his book to help Chinese people reflect on what they would do with all the wealth. “It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. Chinese are just like children in front of the huge fortune that has been gathered quickly in the past decades.”
Contact the writer at xingyi at chinadaily.com.cn
by denton.2 at osu.edu on April 29, 2015
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