My last trip into Zhejiang this month was rather eventful, meeting lots of new people and learning more about family histories and lineage. Proud to report that I’m back in Hong Kong and healthy. Anddddd, no cockroaches in sight. I honestly think they crawled in through the open window and so we just had a few of them hiding out here. No infestation. Fingers crossed.

A brilliant New York Times magazine piece on the seemingly aimless 20-something year olds of this generation caught my eye this morning:
It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be — on the prospects of the young men and women; on the parents on whom so many of them depend; on society, built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which kids finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and on and on. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain un­tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.

The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation….

Not long ago, a cousin’s daughter, just 3 years old, asked me: “Are you a grown up?” She’s an incredibly perceptive child with razor-sharp listening skills. I had to be careful with my response, because she’d remember it for sure the next time we met. Truth is, I didn’t know how to answer her. Because I wasn’t like her parents and clearly I wasn’t a child. So what am I? All I know, is that I’m a 20-something year old journalist/traveler/adventurer/wanderer/dream seeker… but how to explain that to her?

I quickly sent the article off to other 20-something (and one 30-something) year old friends with this message:

This article will ring true for many of you…privileged and lucky to have the chance to try and figure out what it is that you want to do with your lives, searching for your passions and seeking out dreams rather than settling for that regular paycheck. It’s not that black and white, however. That steady job and steady income is ever so alluring. Buying a house. A car. Getting married. I think we are all looking forward to that, but it comes to everyone at the right time. For me, it’s not that time yet. When is your time?
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