Question Chinese 2nd Generation Riches Obsession IRL?

After reading tens of Chinese romance novels in NU, I can't help but wonder....

WHY ARE CHINESE AUTHORS SO OBSESSED WITH 2ND GEN RICHES??

Literally most of the contemporary Chinese romance novels in NU are basically about CEOs / artists / directors / military officers / some other prominent positions with extremely high-ranking family that's drowning in riches.

And in most of those novels, the 2nd gen are like celebrities, making headlines here and there with people idolizing them. Is it really like that in real life as well?

...it's like Britain in the 1800s with nobility-obsessed Jane Austen all over again.

I live in a developing country in South East Asia and here people don't even know who's who, except of course the president's family. And even then, there's no obsession whatsoever to riches and face values.

I'm really interested though, is Chinese community really obsessed with their conglomerates like that? Like Crazy Rich Asian in real life?

 

Because communisn

 

From the fact that the chinese decided it was better to kill their female children to keep their family names when the government implemented the one child policy, then I’d say yes. Don’t expect what the rest of the world calls “humane” behaviour from china.

 

Lol, no way. People don't have the time to be doing that kind of stuff. It's maybe like celebrities I guess, you don't spend all your time on them, you just keep up with the times occasionally. And not all 2nd gens are like that, it's not good for people to be exposed to media sometimes, so parent keep children away from them. And only like the 2nd, 3rd, or other gens who have extremely powerful families & have been exposed to the media since young, or have done some kind of outstanding/terrible deed are recognized by the public.

And mind you, these authors don't know what it's like for these 2nd, 3rd gens. They're just fantasizing and adding details that seem relevant.

They idolize them because they're rich, but even like water armies and fans leaving, it might not be exaggerated, but that's just one point in life.

I hope this makes sense... ^^;

 

In ancient settings, they are called arrogant young masters. In modern settings, rich 2nd generation.
There are plenty of them, since the current Chinese leader is a 2nd generation of previous Chinese leader, and a lot of the political power base are later generation of previous communist leadership.

 

Wish-fulfillment. They want to be rich/have a rich boyfriend/girlfriend AND be adored and worshiped for it. Reminds me of all those questionable quality otome games for mobiles where you can date idols, rich men, princes...
For novels set in the present day, present time, readers do not want to be reminded about how crap and meaningless their lives are, so if you want to cater to the masses you'd better turn the wish-fulfillment up to 11.

 

because in the last few decades china had the biggest boom economically and grown wise a country could expect.
they went from being a shit hole (without being disrespectful) to being the second economy of the world.
and all of those grown old man-woman who left the LAND (in a literal sense) to build fortune and became millionaire and billionaire; had their 2 gen children now. so you had literal millions, yeah millions of people becoming rich from one generation to another, it went so fast and have grown so much that it more or less became a urban myth for china, because even with millions of them becoming rich in multiple levels of difference, the country still had more than 1 billion of people,!
and this is the type of stories that the other 1billion people who did not become rich like to read-hear about, so of course they would write about it and focus on them and like other said; the entire celebrity feels is not different than any other country to be real with you; if you do not know about who those people are in your country is more because you have run away for this gossip fanzone, since clear this is not on your level of interest.

Even here for example is not china and i'm not in this gossip fan thing but i'm already old so i can give you some insight how it became a thing here of this so called 2nd generation obsession since i have lived it , in brazil we have people like this: children who started their carrear young, mostly children of already famous actors who was pushed by their famous father or mother in their own show even if somehow they did not have any talent for it and thus money keep coming since they are a baby and now that they have grown up they are idolized as super "idols" and i put the name super because is true they have build up their "BRANDS" as them since they are kids and now is time to reap the profits!, everyone pays money to have them in someway and form, and some of the most successful of them you can even put super super super, maybe a extra SUPER, Idol category.
you would be terrified to know how much people "pay" and talk about them, one of them i do not remember the exactly value i read about but it goes up to 500k per twitter she receives when pushing up a post on twitter and be aware i'm not talking here about a photo to go along with it, this is extra nor about people who is already super famous and rich in their own "side-business" like world class singer nor a hollywood movie star who is already a world class famous by themselves , i'm talking about 2nd young masters here who in fact outside of the entire earlier child fame being pushed by their father that soon enough most of them dropped the actor job all their success came only because they are already "young masters" of their famous fathers or mothers , the gossip goes as far to make a article about a book that some of them have read in their trip for example (ps is not even them who made/paid/received money to read-do the article but is a paparazie photo with them reading the book in their travel ) and then this book have a spike in sales goes out of stock , the thing they are doing-eating, who they will vote for president, everything.
that in my view perfect fit the description of 2 gen riches obsession.
and every country have their own; you just need to look deep in it in those tabloide scenes ; or you are young enough to not have seen-lived to see it in your natural environment (without going looking for it).

 

Hey if you read the Korean novel it's basically the same thing. Chaebols and all. For the Japanese it's the politicians. For the West it's the bourgeoisie and celebrities.

 

I don't think it's exclusive to CN..... korean, japanese, west novel haf something similiar to that only different skin..... it's mostly (not all) self-insert novel that either the author or the reader van imagine themselves as the mc of said story and date the (insert ur ideal guy/girl)

 

People want to date the most attractive people as possible, this is called hypergamia, for men it means dating a super voluptuous sexy woman like those ones who pop out left and right on isekai and xianxia where their status is also important but mostly a secondary trait

For women hypergamia means men of high status and money with appearances also being desirable but also a secondary trait

As for the media thats just a must, for a person to be influential they must have an impact on every area so the road to make them look important includes having them have media weight, just a character design that checks as many boxes as possible

 

Is this rich generation stuff that alw appeared in novel/tv, a reality or not? Is it only in China? or also happens in other part of Asia or other continent?
I'm asking, since, I'm not from the 'rich' environment, so I know nothing.

 

Because would you read about a guy/girl who's an average poor pleb who interacts s with average poor plebs?

 

I was interested since fictions usually represent how people think in their culture, and I literally could only find novels on 2nd gen mostly in Chinese novels. Even if we take into account Chinese population, the percentage of related novels compared to general themed ones are still quite absurd.

I live in Indonesia, and I can tell you for sure that so far almost all of the chick flicks I can find here are on lower-middle class background, no young master at all. The most popular ones are usually about people originally living in poverty, working hard, and overcoming their hardships while having successful relationships. I can't even mention a title of Indonesian novel / drama on rich young master lifestyle

I guess you're right, the 2nd gen novel trends mainly reflects China's economic strength with their numerous international companies. Those fictions just got me thinking how big our economic strength difference is.

 

This is the funny part, you can find lots, and I mean LOTS, of fictions in my country, Indonesia, about a poor guy loving a poor girl and together they overcome their hardships, but I can't find any on 2nd rich gen, and I've read A LOT of local novels since I worked in a publishing house before. The cinderella story trend, being pampered by rich guy plot, is just not a thing here. Rich people are almost always shown as evil and arrogant characters.

I guess we're just poor. The cultural (and economic) differences are astounding

 

That got me thinking that this could be a very interesting research topic

 

Crazy Rich Asians exists, arrogant 2nd gens exist (met some through my business school chinese classmates) but the GP dont give shit.

I remember one gossip from one 2nd gen though, he has a girlfriend, also chinese and rich. But apparently she's not rich ~enough~ and they were forced to break up. I saw the guy recently and he's now married to a different girl, picked by his parents as per his friends. So even the love stories are not successful irl lol

 

Asking this question is like asking why 50shades of gray is popular to the west....

Or reading harlequin novels, and then asking if america or wherever "really like this is real life???"

People read these novels for easy dream fulfillment. And the authors need to make money from these. So they cater to the mass population, who generally do not have any interest in reading about normal average everyday people's daily life. No drama = less interest & readers = less $

This is proven by the fact that so many people here translate and read these novels but not others.

To keep in mind: what you are probably reading = the cn equiv. of trashy romance novels, not particularly "serious" novels.

There are many many MANY normal romance novels, but the ones being translated here are generally NOT IT.

I always wonder why people who are here and reading chinese novels then have to go around and bash and hate on china. Its not a perfect country by any means, but damn the prejudice & hate in the forum sometimes...

 

Whoa! Getting ahead of yourself here! Criticising tropes and specific genres is now 'hating on China'? Asking whether a group X really is into Y is now 'bashing X'? Either you're trolling or you need to grow a thicker skin, cause this is the forum for Asian novels and you're going to see A LOT of opinionated comments on Chinese tastes/tropes/writers you may find ignorant/repetitive/irrelevant etc. But guess what. The forum exists to voice such opinions, exchange information and ask questions. It's not a place to copy-paste essays and reviews into - there is the NU catalogue for that.
The OP has asked a question about tastes of Chinese readers regarding a specific trope and you're trying to bully them and insinuate that they are xenophobic or something... This is what I call passive-aggressive bullying into silence. You should stop.

 

I do not believe i have criticized the OP in any way, and if it came across that way it was unintentionally. I also believe i answered their question in a very normal manner = the novels that are generally translated and being read here are the cn equivalent to trashy romance novels, and no one questions if that is equivalent to real life.

Additionally , in the same way the other readers are able to vent about the horribleness of China, i should be allowed to question WHY do people feel the need to spew such insult in a community that has (i presume) a high chinese population

My annoyance mainly came from this"From the fact that the chinese decided it was better to kill their female children to keep their family names when the government implemented the one child policy, then I’d say yes. Don’t expect what the rest of the world calls “humane” behaviour from china."

Is this also not an example of xenophobia? But you do not reply to them. Which part of my response elicted such a harsh reply from you to call me a bully?

Almost Every single thread i will see some posts with comments along this line, and i sincerely really question "WHY , if you hate Chinese so much, do you read these novels?"

To add: my 50shades of gray or harlequinn novrls comment was in reference to the fact that anyone should agree it usually depicts an abusive manipulative relationship if thought about. But it is still wildly popular. Do i go read some of these novels and extrapolate this to american IRL? Of course not! So i just would hope readers here not do the same.

 

There's a lot, and I mean A LOT of that here, and if I racked my brain. I watched those poor and poor plebs in India movies, years ago. Several of korean drama and most of its movie are def poor and poor plebs (tho yes the 2nd rich gen idol dramas are alot too).