lydia feng: chinese youth are living in a brave new world. they're richer, better educated, and more connected than ever before. but they're also under constant pressure to compete and to conform. male: [speaking in foreign language] zhao jia: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: we've collaborated with chinese filmmakers to bring you three intimate stories of young people

rejecting convention, testing the limits of their freedom, and trying to find their place in china's future. toutou: [speaking in foreign language]

toutou: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: university students return to campus after day 1 of junxun, the two weeks of compulsory military training that open the academic year. among them is a 20-year-old social studies major from far away guizhou province, toutou. toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking foreign language]

toutou: [speaking foreign language] lydia: voguing is a sub-culture and a dance that emerged from new york city's queer scene in the 1980s. members of different families or houses compete in walk-offs and dance battles at voguing balls. house founders are known as mothers and fathers. mother lua: but we can also move just a little. toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language]

toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: in a week's time, toutou and his family will compete in the first major ballroom event of the year, the shanghai baby voguing ball. toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language]

jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreignanguage] jia: [speaking in foreign language]

jia: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: thirty-one-year-old zhao jia had a cadillac, an apartment in the city, and a career with china's largest private education company. she gave it all up to be a farmer. jia: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: jia runs a 200-acre mixed farm in the hills of eastern shandong province with her hband chen. she's part of a divergent group of young chinese known as fanxiang qingnian, or returning youth. for decades, rural chinese couldn't wait to get out as they

sought work in the booming coastal cities. but some are now rejecting costs and pressures of urban life and returning home. jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: unlike their appearance, china's new generation of farmers is armed with technology, but we're not talking tractors. the tool of choice for returning youth is the smartphone. jia: [speaking in foreign language]

lydia: jia livestreams her farming life and advertises her produce to more than half a million followers on chinese tiktok. jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: rural influencers like jia are a blooming subset of china's $200 billion livestreaming industry. in china, social media platforms like tiktok are seamlessly integrated with e -commerce, so farmers can sell their produce live to their followers.

jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: jia's farm is in a region famous for cherries. when she and her husband took over the property, it was

suffering after years of intensive monoculture. jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language]

jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language]

lydia: shanghai's summer chorus of cicadas fills the air as toutou packs his things for the ball. toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language]

toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language]

male: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language]

toutou: [speaking in foreign language] toutou: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

lee tuang: [speaking in foreign language] lee tuang: [speaking in foreign language] lee tuang: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: at the age of 32, lee tuang was feeling lost and suffering from anxiety. he left his job as an editor with a renowned publishing house in beijing and volunteered with daoist monks on wudang mountain.

lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: tuang grew up in the hutongs, the narrow alleyways of old beijing. over decades of rampant development,

many of these neighborhoods were bulldozed. others were sanitized for tourists. and only a handful of the real hutongs remain, working class communities like the one tuang now calls home. when he heard his grandparents's old house was sitting vacant, tuang moved in and opened a grocery store. lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language]

lee: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] machine: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: lee tuang's not the only young person upsetting the nation. a fringe movement known as tang ping, or lying flat, is ruffling the government's feathers. it's a form of passive protest that involves dropping out of

china's competitive work culture and rejecting material success. the communist party has labeled tang ping a threat to stability. state media calls it shameful. online discussion of the movement is censored. lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language[

machine: [speaking in foreign language] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language]

female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language]

jia: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language]

jia: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] jia: [speaking in foreign language] male: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] lydia: lee tuang has taken to visiting the park each morning, traditionally the domain of retirees. it helps with his anxiety, and he's avoiding his mother, who's been staying with him at the shop.

tuang's mom is a retired teacher who worked the same job her entire career. lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] lee: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speing inoreign language]

female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] female: [speaking in foreign language] ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ lee: [speaking in foreign language]

samantha hawley: it's only a jump across the water tñ■aa■x■xñn■x from great britain to no, but some wayst's like traveling back in time. after more than 20 years of relative peace, tensions have broken out again. violence not seen for decades is back on the streets. northern ireland should be celebrating its centenary as part of the united kingdom, but people are angry.