The "Buddha-like" label is primarily adopted by young Chinese men from the post-90s and post-00s generations referring to their less-than-optimistic life outlook, although some post-80s experiencing quarter-life crises also admit subscribing to the mindset.
Stressed out by poor job prospects, decreased life satisfaction, increasingly stagnant social mobility, disappointing romantic life, familial complications of the one-child policy, and soaring housing prices, youths have adopted the term to maintain their fortitude and as a backlash against society's high expectations.
[12] Disinterested in accumulating material possessions and wealth, herbivore men do not care about forming relationships with women or having sex.
[13] As Japan's patriarchal society is gradually being dismantled, women, after having developed stronger personalities, have become hard for men to manage, commentators say.
[12] The phrase was used in the context of the otaku subculture to discuss men disinterested in having relationships with women and who were spending all their time on their career or hobbies.
[10] According to the scholar Jie Yang, the article was widely read by millions of viewers in China who connected with its message of living a Zen-like existence of being apathetic towards both wins and losses in life to confront the increased stress they feel from their community.
[15] Individuals use metaphors like "foxi" upon realising that existing words' plain definitions are unable to capture what they want to convey.
[19] Like people born in Generation X in the United States, the post-90s youth probably have tough prospects of leading a life as good as their parents did, scholar Jie Yang wrote.
[5] According to Tian Feng, a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences research fellow, this is rooted in China experiencing very quick growth which leads to numerous transformations.
[3] Xu Hua, a professor at the School of Sociology and Political Science at Anhui University, said that by adopting the "Buddha-like mindset", youth can remain "calm and flexible", allowing them to, in the course of time, assume increased duties.
[3] Youth in Hong Kong have adopted the Buddha-like mindset as they face a similar plight of no longer having the social mobility opportunities their parents had.
[4] When they encounter difficulties in life, a Buddha-like mentality enables the youth to experience a respite and liberates them from the concomitant pessimistic feelings.
[28] On 21 January 2018, the game Travel Frog, which was released by the Japanese company Hit-Point, reached number one in downloads in the "free app" category and was one of Sina Weibo's top queries.
[26] Ma Xiquan, a Shanghai East Hospital clinical psychologist, found that Travel Frog embodies its gamers' "low social demands" and complements their Buddha-like philosophy of going through life in a relaxed manner.
[29] "Buddha-like" or "foxi" has been applied to numerous circumstances:[10] In Hong Kong, online news HK01's editor Chan Pakyu called Kenneth Ma "the entertainment industry's only 'Buddha-like male god'".
[31] Chan said Ma met the qualities through being nonchalant about underperforming commentators' expectations at the TVB Anniversary Awards ceremony, his casual attire, and his perceived more passive approach to dating.
[31] In 2018, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Lai Ching-te, the Premier of Taiwan, faced criticism about having a Buddha-like mindset regarding Taiwanese independence from China.
[33] In the Chinese technology field, a number of companies have adopted the 996 working hour system in which employees do their jobs from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, six days per week.
Zhou Hongyi, the CEO of the security company Qihoo 360, said that workers who have a Buddha-like mindset are not compatible with the tech industry since tiny missteps might cause massive errors.
[1][8] Both "sang" culture and the "Buddha-like" mindset are inspired by China's exacting demands and young people's repudiation of those standards in a mostly self-effacing manner.
[8] The "sang" culture urges individuals to "openly embrace and even competitively perform despair, burnout, misfortune, and everyday failures, representing people without desires, ambitions, or aims".
[1] The two lifestyles share self-deprecation with the Buddha-like mindset, not only fully embracing the "sang" culture but also building on it by recommending people to take a constructive approach.
[1] Jie Yang, an anthropology professor at Simon Fraser University, said that the Buddha-like mindset seems to be "a less stressful, more self-centered, and relatively healthy one" compared to the "sang" lifestyle.
When faced with hardship, people who follow the "nande hutu" philosophy aim to excuse misfortune and to avoid getting furious about their situation by undergoing "emotional or cognitive reconstruction".
[35] In a 2 January 2018, article, the Global Times, a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from a deeply nationalistic perspective, denounced people who had a Buddha-like mindset.
[6] Xuan Loc Doan wrote in the Asia Times, a Hong Kong newspaper, that the growing number of youth who subscribed to the Buddha-like mindset illustrated how the CCP had failed to convince them to adopt the beliefs of the party despite the Xi Jinping Administration's expending substantial effort into attempting to persuade them through propaganda like rap songs, virtual concerts with celebrities shown via hologram, and matchmaking gatherings.
[5][6] am730 columnist Chan Yatlong, a secondary school student, found that the Buddha-like mindset was "a waste of time" as it was a mismatch for enthusiastic young people and urged her peers to take the initiative on addressing any misfortunes in their lives.
[36] Zhang Yiwu suggested that as the Chinese populace became progressively prosperous, the youngsters were released from the burden of having to improve their prospects in a fiercely cutthroat world.
They stated that on the one hand, it was "a product of technology and commercial entrapment" and has "a certain degree of negative decadence" that would hurt society if left unchecked.
On the other hand, the duo found that people with the Buddha-like mindset are noted for having tranquil thoughts, are disinterested in becoming famous, and "may be able to alleviate conflicts and contradictions in society and relieve the life pressure of youth groups".