Food For Thought: The 3 no's of young generation – China just admitted its population collapse is underway and is now irreversible.

"China’s marriage rate just collapsed to levels that make recovery nearly impossible. In Q1 2026, China recorded only 1.69 million marriages, down 6.24% from last year and less than half the level of 2017. Behind the numbers lies a terrifying reality: 33 million more men than women, a shrinking young population, sky-high housing costs, youth unemployment, and a growing 'lying flat' generation that has simply given up on the old life script. It’s a structural demographic crisis decades in the making and it is already too late to reverse."

@brianschmidt704: "We have an entire generation in China that is lying flat. And they are living by the three no's: no marriage, no children, no housing."

@01147762: "Having been a certified English teacher and taught in China for almost a decade. I noticed year after year my class sizes get smaller and smaller. I knew the reasons why, and yet I would hear Chinese say things like 'it will reverse, you’ll see' or my personal favorite 'the government will come up with a solution'. I can remember almost hearing the naïveté from such voices. Meanwhile, while I lived in Zhenjiang during the lockdowns I saw how kindergartens, primary schools quietly closed up. Public data that once publicized birth rates became a 'state secret'… code for: the data is really bad, don’t say anything. Before I left China last year, I remember my Chinese school headmaster discussing with my fellow foreign teachers about the falling birth rate. Since it was a sensitive subject, her voice trembled slightly. George Carlin once mocked about the 'American Dream' saying that 'you have to be asleep in order to believe it.' I feel the same way about Xi’s 'China Dream'."

@theshuttergrind: "As I am still in China, it's funny to see all the 60 year old aunties chanting China the safest, China the best as if the Cultural revolution was still going... The rational ones want to leave or have already left. The 30 year old women thinking youth and matcha lattes last forever... men just checking out. And kids shout Mao era communist slogans. You start to hear cracks in the narrative but they're just whispers... I should have never learned Chinese... The things I have to hear... unrequested... oh foreigner your Chinese so good, china the best... better than your country... yes? 肯定比国家好，是不是．．．你是什么国家的？China is up for a heavy reality check."

More in the Ken Cao video.