1、The night before I was heading for Scotland, I was invited to host the final of “Chinas Got Talent“ show in Shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium. Guess who was the performing guest? Susan Boyle. And I told her, “Im going to Scotland the next day.“ She sang beautifully, and she even
2、managed to say a few words in Chinese. Chinese So its not like “hello“ or “thank you,“ that ordinary stuff. It means “green onion for free.“ Why did she say that? Because it was a line from our Chinese parallel Susan Boyle - a 50-some year-old woman, a vegetable vendor in Shanghai, who loves singing
3、 Western opera, but she didnt understand any English or French or Italian, so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in Chinese. (Laughter) And the last sentence of Nessun Dorma that she was singing in the stadium was “green onion for free.“ So as Susan Boyle was saying that, 80,000
4、live audience sang together. That was hilarious.So I guess both Susan Boyle and this vegetable vendor in Shanghai belonged to otherness. They were the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment, yet their courage and talent brought them through. And a show and a platform ga
5、ve them the stage to realize their dreams. Well, being different is not that difficult. We are all different from different perspectives. But I think being different is good, because you present a different point of view. You may have the chance to make a difference.My generation has been very fortu
6、nate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of China that has made so many changes in the past 20, 30 years. I remember that in the year of 1990, when I was graduating from college, I was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel in Beijing, Great Wal
7、l Sheraton - its still there. So after being interrogated by this Japanese manager for a half an hour, he finally said, “So, Miss Yang, do you have any questions to ask me?“ I summoned my courage and poise and said, “Yes, but could you let me know, what actually do you sell?“ I didnt have a clue wha
8、t a sales department was about in a five-star hotel. That was the first day I set my foot in a five-star hotel.Well after a few years, I decided to go to the U.S. and Columbia University to pursue my postgraduate studies, and then started my own media company, which was unthought of during the years
9、 that I started my career. So we do a lot of things. Ive interviewed more than a thousand people in the past. And sometimes I have young people approaching me say, “Lan, you changed my life,“ and I feel proud of that. But then we are also so fortunate to witness the transformation of the whole count
10、ry. I was in Beijings bidding for the Olympic Games. I was representing the Shanghai Expo. I saw China embracing the world and vice versa. But then sometimes Im thinking, what are todays young generation up to? How are they different, and what are the differences they are going to make to shape the
11、future of China, or at large, the world?So today I want to talk about young people through the platform of social media. First of all, who are they? What do they look like? Well this is a girl called Guo Meimei - 20 years old, beautiful. She showed off her expensive bags, clothes and car on her micr
12、oblog, which is the Chinese version of Twitter. And she claimed to be the general manager of Red Cross at the Chamber of Commerce. She didnt realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning, almost a turmoil, against the credibility of Red Cross. The controversy was so
13、heated that the Red Cross had to open a press conference to clarify it, and the investigation is going on.So far, as of today, we know that she herself made up that title - probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity. All those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boy
14、friend, who used to be a board member in a subdivision of Red Cross at Chamber of Commerce. Its very complicated to explain. But anyway, the public still doesnt buy it. It is still boiling. It shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions, which lacked transparency in t
15、he past. And also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog.Microblog boomed in the year of 2010, with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled. S, a major news portal, alone has more than 140 million microbloggers. On Tencent, 200 million. The most popular blogger - it
16、s not me - its a movie star, and she has more than 9.5 million followers, or fans. About 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people, under 30 years old. And because, as you know, the traditional media is still heavily controlled by the government, social media offers an opening to let the st
17、eam out a little bit. But because you dont have many other openings, the heat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong, active and even violent.So through microblogging, we are able to understand Chinese youth even better. So how are they different? First of all, most of them were born in
18、 the 80s and 90s, under the one-child policy. And because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls, now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women. That could pose a potential danger to the society, but who knows; were in a globalized world, so they can look for gir
19、lfriends from other countries. Most of them have fairly good education. The illiteracy rate in China among this generation is under one percent. In cities, 80 percent of kids go to college. But they are facing an aging China with a population above 65 years old coming up with seven-point-some percen
20、t this year, and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030. And you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially, and taking care of them when theyre sick. So it means young couples will have to support four parents who have a life expectancy of 73 years old.So
21、 making a living is not that easy for young people. College graduates are not in short supply. In urban areas, college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 U.S. dollars a month, while the average rent is above $500. So what do they do? They have to share space - squeezed in very limited s
22、pace to save money - and they call themselves “tribe of ants.“ And for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment, they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their first apartment. That ratio in America would only cost a couple five years to earn, but in China it
23、s 30 to 40 years with the skyrocketing real estate price.Among the 200 million migrant workers, 60 percent of them are young people. They find themselves sort of sandwiched between the urban areas and the rural areas. Most of them dont want to go back to the countryside, but they dont have the sense
24、 of belonging. They work for longer hours with less income, less social welfare. And theyre more vulnerable to job losses, subject to inflation, tightening loans from banks, appreciation of the renminbi, or decline of demand from Europe or America for the products they produce. Last year, though, an
25、 appalling incident in a southern OEM manufacturing compound in China: 13 young workers in their late teens and early 20s committed suicide, just one by one like causing a contagious disease. But they died because of all different personal reasons. But this whole incident aroused a huge outcry from
26、society about the isolation, both physical and mental, of these migrant workers.For those who do return back to the countryside, they find themselves very welcome locally, because with the knowledge, skills and networks they have learned in the cities, with the assistance of the Internet, theyre abl
27、e to create more jobs, upgrade local agriculture and create new business in the less developed market. So for the past few years, the coastal areas, they found themselves in a shortage of labor.These diagrams show a more general social background. The first one is the Engels coefficient, which expla
28、ins that the cost of daily necessities has dropped its percentage all through the past decade, in terms of family income, to about 37-some percent. But then in the last two years, it goes up again to 39 percent, indicating a rising living cost. The Gini coefficient has already passed the dangerous l
29、ine of 0.4. Now its 0.5 - even worse than that in America - showing us the income inequality. And so you see this whole society getting frustrated about losing some of its mobility. And also, the bitterness and even resentment towards the rich and the powerful is quite widespread. So any accusations
30、 of corruption or backdoor dealings between authorities or business would arouse a social outcry or even unrest.So through some of the hottest topics on microblogging, we can see what young people care most about. Social justice and government accountability runs the first in what they demand. For t
31、he past decade or so, a massive urbanization and development have let us witness a lot of reports on the forced demolition of private property. And it has aroused huge anger and frustration among our young generation. Sometimes people get killed, and sometimes people set themselves on fire to protes
32、t. So when these incidents are reported more and more frequently on the Internet, people cry for the government to take actions to stop this.So the good news is that earlier this year, the state council passed a new regulation on house requisition and demolition and passed the right to order forced
33、demolition from local governments to the court. Similarly, many other issues concerning public safety is a hot topic on the Internet. We heard about polluted air, polluted water, poisoned food. And guess what, we have faked beef. They have sorts of ingredients that you brush on a piece of chicken or
34、 fish, and it turns it to look like beef. And then lately, people are very concerned about cooking oil, because thousands of people have been found refining cooking oil from restaurant slop. So all these things have aroused a huge outcry from the Internet. And fortunately, we have seen the governmen
35、t responding more timely and also more frequently to the public concerns.While young people seem to be very sure about their participation in public policy-making, but sometimes theyre a little bit lost in terms of what they want for their personal life. China is soon to pass the U.S. as the number
36、one market for luxury brands - thats not including the Chinese expenditures in Europe and elsewhere. But you know what, half of those consumers are earning a salary below 2,000 U.S. dollars. Theyre not rich at all. Theyre taking those bags and clothes as a sense of identity and social status. And th
37、is is a girl explicitly saying on a TV dating show that she would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle. But of course, we do have young people who would still prefer to smile, whether in a BMW or on a bicycle.So in the next picture, you see a very popular phenomenon called “naked“ wedding, or
38、 “naked“ marriage. It does not mean they will wear nothing in the wedding, but it shows that these young couples are ready to get married without a house, without a car, without a diamond ring and without a wedding banquet, to show their commitment to true love. And also, people are doing good throu
39、gh social media. And the first picture showed us that a truck caging 500 homeless and kidnapped dogs for food processing was spotted and stopped on the highway with the whole country watching through microblogging. People were donating money, dog food and offering volunteer work to stop that truck.
40、And after hours of negotiation, 500 dogs were rescued. And here also people are helping to find missing children. A father posted his sons picture onto the Internet. After thousands of unclear, the child was found, and we witnessed the reunion of the family through microblogging.So happiness is the
41、most popular word we have heard through the past two years. Happiness is not only related to personal experiences and personal values, but also, its about the environment. People are thinking about the following questions: Are we going to sacrifice our environment further to produce higher GDP? How
42、are we going to perform our social and political reform to keep pace with economic growth, to keep sustainability and stability? And also, how capable is the system of self-correctness to keep more people content with all sorts of friction going on at the same time? I guess these are the questions p
43、eople are going to answer. And our younger generation are going to transform this country while at the same time being transformed themselves.Thank you very much.来苏格兰（做 TED 讲演）的前夜，我被邀请去上海做”中国达人秀“决赛的评委。在装有八万现场观众的演播厅里，在台上的表演嘉宾居然是（来自苏格兰的，因参加英国达人秀走红的）苏珊大妈（Susan Boyle)。我告诉她，“我明天就要启程去苏格兰。” 她唱得很动听，还对观众说了几句
44、中文，她并没有说简单的”你好“或者 ”谢谢 “，她说的是“ 送你葱”。为什么？这句话其实来源于中国版的“苏珊大妈 ”一位五十岁的以卖菜为生，却对西方歌剧有出奇爱好的上海中年妇女（蔡洪平）。这位中国的苏珊大妈并不懂英文，法语或意大利文，所以她将歌剧中的词汇都换做中文中的蔬菜名，并且演唱出来。在她口中，歌剧图兰朵的最后一句便是“Song Ni Cong”。当真正的英国苏珊大妈唱出这一句“中文的 ” 图兰朵时，全场的八万观众也一起高声歌唱，场面的确有些滑稽。我想 Susan Boyle 和这位上海的买菜农妇的确属于人群中的少数。她们是最不可能在演艺界成功的，而她们的勇气和才华让她们成功了，这个节目和
45、舞台给予了她们一个实现个人梦想的机会。这样看来，与众不同好像没有那么难。从不同的方面审视，我们每个人都是不同的。但是我想，与众不同是一件好事，因为你代表了不一样的观点，你拥有了做改变的机会。我这一代中国人很幸运的目睹并且参与了中国在过去二三十年中经历的巨变。我记得 1990 年，当我刚大学毕业时，我申请了当时北京的第一家五星级酒店长城喜来登酒店的销售部门的工作。这家酒店现在仍在北京。当我被一位日本籍经理面试了一个半小时之后，他问到，“杨小姐，你有什么想问我的吗？”，我屏住呼吸，问道“ 是的，你能告诉我，具体我需要销售些什么吗？” 当时的我，对五星级酒店的销售部门没有任何概念，事实上，那是我第一
46、次进到一家五星级酒店。我当时也在参加另一场“面试”，中国国家电视台的首次公开试镜，与我一起参与选拔的还有另外 1000 名大学女毕业生。节目制作人说，他们希望找到一位甜美，无辜（LOL），漂亮的新鲜面孔。轮到我的时候，我问道“为什么在电视屏幕上，女性总应该表现出甜美漂亮，甚至是服从性的一面？为什么她们不能有她们自己的想法和声音？“我觉得我的问题甚至有点冒犯到了他。但实际上，他们对我的表现印象深刻。我进入了第二轮选拔，第三轮，第四轮，直至最后的第七场选拔，我是唯一一个走到最后的试镜者。我从此走上了国家电视台黄金时段的荧幕。你可能不相信，但在当时，我所主持的电视节目是中国第一个，不让主持人念已经审
47、核过的稿件的节目（掌声）。我每周需要面对两亿到三亿左右的电视观众。几年以后，我决定来美国哥伦比亚大学继续深造，之后也开始运营自己的媒体公司，这也是我在职业生涯初始时所没有预料到的。我的公司做很多不同的业务，在过去这些年里，我访谈过一千多人。经常有年轻人对我说，“杨澜，你改变了我的人生”，我对此感到非常自豪。我也幸运的目睹了整个国家的转变：我参与了北京申奥和上海世博会。我看到中国在拥抱这个世界，而世界也进一步的接受中国。但有时我也在想，今天的年轻人的生活是什么样的？他们（与我们相比）有什么不同？他们将带给中国，甚至整个世界的未来一些怎样的变化？我想通过社交媒体来谈一谈中国的年轻人们。首先，他们是
48、谁，他们是什么样子？这是一位叫郭美美的女孩儿，20 岁，年轻漂亮。她在中国版的 Twitter 上新浪微博上，炫耀她所拥有的奢侈品，衣服，包和车。她甚至宣称她是中国红十字会的工作人员。她没有意识到她的行为触及了中国民众极为敏感的神经，这引发了一场全民大讨论，民众开始质疑红十字会的公信力。中国红十字会为了平息这场争议甚至举办了一场记者会来澄清，直至今日，对于”郭美美事件“的调查仍在继续。时至今日，我们所知道的事实是，她谎报了她的头衔，可能是因为她的虚荣心，希望把自己和慈善机构联系起来。所有那些奢侈品都是她的男朋友给她买的，而那位”男朋友 “的确曾经是红十字会的工作人员。这解释起来很复杂，总之，公
49、众对他们的解释仍然不满意，这仍然是在风口浪尖的一件事。这件事体现出（中国社会）对长期不 透明的政府机关的不信任，同时也表现出社交媒体（微博）巨大的社会影响力。微博在 2010 年得到了爆炸性的增长，微博的访问用户增长了一倍，用户的访问时间是 09 年的三倍。新浪（ S)，一个最主要的微博平台，拥有 1.4亿的微博用户，而腾讯拥有两亿用户。（在中国）最有名的微博主不是我是一位电影明星，她拥有近九百五十万”粉丝“。接近 80的微博用户是 年轻人，三十岁以下。因为传统媒体还在政府的强力控制之下，社交媒体提供了一个开放的平台进行了一些（民众观点的）分流。因为这样分流的渠道并不多，从这 个平台上爆发出的能量往往非常强烈，有时候甚至过于强烈。通过微博，我们可以更好的了解到中国的年轻一代。首先，他们中的大多数都出生在八零九零年代，在独生子女的生育政策的大背景下长大。因为偏好男孩的家庭会选择性的堕胎，现在（中国）的年轻男性的数量多过年轻女性三千万，这可能带来社会的不稳定（危险），但是我们知道，在这个全球化的社会中，他们可能可以去其他国家找女朋友。大多数人都拥有良好的教育。这一代中国人中的文盲率已经低于 1。在城市中，80的孩子可
