Author |Lu.
As the most important festival for Chinese, the Spring Festival has always been given many special meanings. Especially after a special period of three years, people are looking forward to unburdening themselves, reorganizing themselves, and starting again with good luck in this festival endowed with multiple meanings; On the one hand, there is a desire to reunite with family and build a more intimate emotional relationship to better cope with future challenges.
It is particularly noteworthy that young people are becoming the breadwinners of their families and are beginning to play a central role in social relationships. For the Spring Festival, they have also changed from the "escape ceremony" of previous years to "willing to participate and take the initiative to build", and look forward to celebrating the Spring Festival according to their own ideas. In each novel way of celebrating the New Year, young people's expectations for the future and their attitudes towards life are more vividly expressed during this period.
"Passive homecoming" and active travel
Although in the habitual cognition of the Chinese people, the Spring Festival is the node for the wanderers to return to the nest and soothe their homesickness, "if you have money or not, go home for the New Year" is a common way to open the New Year. However, business data shows another trend: many young people and young family users choose to reward themselves with a Spring Festival trip during the eight-day holiday.
According to the 2024 Chinese New Year Youth Social Media Trend Insights jointly released by Kantar and Xiaohongshu, 18% of young people aged 18-35 plan to travel for the Chinese New Year, and 36% plan to spend more on travel during the Spring Festival. As the second Spring Festival after the opening of epidemic control, the mentality of young people fluctuates repeatedly between "revenge travel", "reward" mentality, and "Harbin ice and snow fever".
For young people, tourism has more autonomy than returning home. Feifei, who is from the north, chose to go to Sanya with her friends for the Spring Festival this year, and she told the Institute, "Traveling for the New Year is a more modern lifestyle that I look forward to, relieving the fatigue and anxiety of a whole year with friends and building a vision for the new year in leisure." ”
Fei Fei's photograph of Guanyin on the sea in Sanya.
Fei Fei also shared that after returning to her hometown as a northern woman, she not only had to help her mother "busy the year", but also had to be talked about by female elders about marriage and childbirth, which was very disturbing. "For me, who came from a rural background, coming home in the New Year means seeing my relatives and the traditional way of life that I can't go back to. ”
In addition to young people like Fei Fei who want to escape tradition and build new experiences, there are also young people who choose to travel with their parents. For example, Momo, the only daughter in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, chose to take her parents abroad to travel to Serbia during the Spring Festival this year. When sharing her own journey, she said that she actually wanted to take her parents on a trip for a long time, but she was very worried that she would be "out of sync" with her parents during the trip.
Children and parents may have disagreements from consumption concepts to itinerary planning, and what is more worrying is that if there is a conflict in the planned itinerary, the family trip that was supposed to go out with expectations is likely to return disappointed, so the indifferent family travel plan has not been completed for a long time. But this year, she finally made up her mind that she wanted to show her parents the world she had seen.
Desert photograph of the dome of the Serbian St. Sava Church.
During the pandemic, our family has become closer and more interdependent, and I don't want to worry so much, so I can try to bring my parents with me when I have the opportunity to travel. Mo Mo said that she summarized many tips for traveling with her parents on the Internet, hoping that everyone can have a better experience.
Behind this shift is actually related to the changing role of this generation of young people in the family. Many young people have become "parents" in the past few years, either actively or passively. At the same time, young people also experience the powerlessness of "suspended individuals" in the face of uncertainty, and hope to gain understanding, support and protection from the family, and are more eager to draw long-term and stable "intimacy" from the family.
For example, the entry "full-time children" that will become popular in 2023, and the topic of "full-time children" on Xiaohongshu has been read more than 637 times in the past three months30 thousand. It means that young people take a leave of absence to live with their parents, and pay a certain amount of labor in exchange for financial support, while maintaining their studies and trying to find their career goals, take public entrance examinations, and go ashore. In addition to the post-90s and post-00s young people looking for jobs while working as "full-time children", there are also post-70s and post-80s generations who choose to take care of them because of their parents' illness or new thinking about life.
Through the window of "Chinese New Year", many young people shared their first family outing and family citywalk on social **, and many parents came to the market where young people gathered for the first time and saw their children wearing their favorite Hanfu. The Spring Festival has become a window for young people to communicate with their parents in depth, and in a more uncertain moment, young people are willing to take the initiative to change and take the initiative to build a sense of ritual in the family.
Family travel is the main way to travel during the Spring Festival.
As anthropologist Yan Yunxiang pointed out in "The Inverted Chinese Family: Intergenerational Interactions and New Familialism in the Early 21st Century", when more and more risks and responsibilities need to be borne by individuals, the family has become an important material and spiritual "safe haven" for most people. In the past two decades, the intergenerational relationship between parents and children has also been the main axis of family relations. In the minds of this generation of young people, the traditional concept of "filial piety" has gradually faded, and mutual respect and equal participation in each other's lives have become an important part.
Celebrate the New Year with the "hitchhiker".
In 2023, "hitchhiking" will become an important part of young people's social life. This new type of social relationship includes, but is not limited to, a meal pair, a travel pair, a coffee pair, a sports partner, a drama partner, etc., and its intimacy is between friends and colleagues, which is also known as the replacement of intimate relationships. In a fast-paced and highly fluid life, hitchhiking is a quick and burden-free way to get companionship and empathy.
Young people who always want to go further have begun to solicit "2024 Spring Festival Travel Partners" and "Hangzhou Shanghai Fly, Time 2024".2.9—2024.2.22. Plan Southeast Asia, limited to female students. "The travel time is 2024 2 11—2024 2 16, looking for a Beijing travel partner, shopping, taking pictures, and cooking together. "Looking for a 2024 Spring Festival Australian partner, limited to girls, starting from Chengdu and Chongqing, half-way matching is also available. ”
Notes on Xiaohongshu to recruit "New Year's partners".
Momo, a girl from Chengdu, said in an interview with the Surprise Research Institute, "Have a meal with your family during the Spring Festival, and you can set off for a trip the next day." The matching partners on the Internet do not need to accommodate each other, and the time and itinerary can be matched to set off, which is very worry-free. Momo said that she wanted to find a female travel partner to go to Yunnan together, "Sometimes it is more relaxed and stress-free to be with strangers." ”
Unlike friends, who need to "see people's hearts over time", "partners" do not need to get along for a long time and interact with each other frequently. If you say hello during the hike, you can add WeChat to become a "hiking partner"; A greeting in the game group can form a round of teammates and become a "game partner"; If you share a snack with a colleague on your first day at a new company, you can become a "lunch partner" at lunchtime.
This kind of "partner" social relationship may not bring practical help in real life, but the perceived support between "partners" is a more effective factor affecting relationship satisfaction and life satisfaction. That's why everyone says that "hitchhiker" is "the main companion".
Young people choose to travel with "Internet partners" for the New Year, which is also more in line with young people's pursuit of freedom. In the traditional way of celebrating the New Year, there are not only many rituals that require the participation of all family members, but also many passive socialization with elders of different ages and concepts. Many people return home from the city, which is equivalent to returning from their comfort zone to a "guardianship relationship" with their parents, receiving both care and preaching.
In contrast, travel strips away a lot of the social redundancy that is maintained based on inertia. For example, the customs of the New Year are restrained and the burden of human affection, afraid of urging marriage and urging blind dates, and afraid of embarrassing conversations; However, the traditional New Year's family affection and nostalgia are completely abandoned and too lonely, and the form of "hitchhiking" is just right for the Spring Festival.
Reshape the collective** and find a new outlet for emotions
In the memory of 2023, the "unexpected" Halloween in Shanghai is a strong stroke in the minds of Internet families. Young people celebrate with strange young people on the streets through spontaneous meme carnivals, and the end of the world is at this time. Behind this is the need for young people to find an outlet for collective release for self-expression, to release deeper group emotions, and thus to draw new energy. Young people who are keen on working hard will naturally not miss the Spring Festival.
Young people who have taken over the purchase rights of New Year's goods have pulled the search and purchase data of various personalized goods to a new high. For example, the new Chinese-style coat New Year's greeting clothes, the Spring Festival cross-body small "dragon" bag and other clothing products with national style elements, as well as a variety of homophony, patterns, and new couplets composed of letters, have become popular New Year's goods.
According to the report released by CBNDATA, in terms of budget planning for New Year's goods, about forty percent of young consumers set their budgets at about 2,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan, and some young people who are "not bad at money" even have a budget of 10,000 yuan. Among them, 86% of young consumers purchase New Year's goods through online e-commerce.
In addition, young people have also allocated a budget for electronic New Year's goods. During the Spring Festival, virtual goods that can provide emotional value are visibly popular among young consumer groups. For example, ** platform members, New Year's themed mobile phone wallpapers, New Year's greeting emojis, WeChat red envelope covers, AI customized New Year's messages, etc., are all electronic New Year's goods favored by post-00 young people. "The flavor of the New Year is not only available offline, but also online. ”
Ziqi, who was born in the 00s, showed the "essential artifact for Spring Festival socialization" she purchased to the Surprise Research Institute - New Year's greeting emojis. Ziqi said that many New Year's greetings are now **, and she has collected all kinds of good-looking emojis, including **IP, as well as elements of the Year of the Dragon, some of which are still bought with money. "Dynamic emojis can generally get a set of a few dollars to a dozen yuan, and this set of electronic New Year's goods can make me the brightest cub in the group, which is quite worthwhile. ”
The cover of the red envelope collected by Ziqi.
For young people born in the 00s, New Year-themed mobile phone wallpapers, New Year's greetings, and auspicious words have replaced perms and nail art, and have become the new "New Year's three-piece set". "I don't know what New Year's greetings to send, so let's send an emoji. ”
The characteristic of young people is that they have no identity, and consumption is a way to express themselves, while non-consumption is a kind of silent resistance. Since the beginning of this year, the "minimalist New Year" has been circulating on the Internet, and Dachang people have chosen not to buy new clothes during this year's Spring Festival, reduce the purchase of New Year's goods, and prepare for the minimalist New Year.
Taro Yuan said, "In the past, the big purchases for the Chinese New Year made people deeply anxious, as if they were hoarding doomsday materials, and once they faced a shortage, their lives would be paralyzed during the Spring Festival." But the minimalist New Year, can let you free yourself from this internal friction, rather than hoarding your home into a prepared warehouse, it is better to make up for what is missing, save consumption at the same time, and make room for relaxation for life. ”
For taro yuan, the memory of the Spring Festival in previous years can only be summed up by two words: "Spring Festival". "Every year, I have to squeeze on the train with the most people, go home at the limit of the stuck point, and before I have slowed down, I have to go to the table for Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, eat dumplings at 0 o'clock, and the remaining days will enter the 'garbage time' constructed by film and television dramas, and spend the rest of the holidays in solving leftovers and replaying the Spring Festival Gala." ”
Taro Yuan said in the black words of Dachang, which he usually uses: "The project of the Chinese New Year, resolute minimalism may deform the Spring Festival at the implementation level, but from the perspective of the results, it is definitely effective." However, when it comes to why the New Year should be minimalist, the most talked about is that when the New Year is marked by a statutory holiday, the eight-day holiday is precious.
In the past, the Spring Festival was full of family friction, human contacts, and unnecessary hoarding......Now, everyone understands that this process brings only unnecessary quarrels. "Young people want to spend the New Year in a relaxed way, and at the end of the year, they finally have a few days off, and it is understandable that they want to spend the New Year quietly and comfortably. ”
In general, the Spring Festival is a flowing tradition, and each generation is injecting its own elements of the times into it, which is also the reason why the Spring Festival has maintained its vigorous vitality for thousands of years.
In the text, "Fei Fei", "Mo Mo", "Momo", "Ziqi" and "Taro Yuan" are pseudonyms.
Kunpeng Project