A “Buddha-like lifestyle,” or “fo xi” in Mandarin Chinese, is a term coined around 2017 that describes a life philosophy that more and more Chinese youths are adopting: having no desires, being indifferent, not ambitious to achieve anything, nor caring to please others.
Dong Zhenhua, a professor at the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School, the leading institution for training cadres, wrote an article criticizing the “fo xi” lifestyle that was published Jan. 20 in People’s Forum, a magazine printed by the Party’s mouthpiece newspaper, People’s Daily.
Many other state-run media outlets re-published the article on their websites.
Dong, who also is deputy director of the Party School’s philosophy education department, wrote that a “fo xi” lifestyle will lead people to “give up their principles and follow others.”
“Lacking in the desire to chase their dreams,” these people will lose the motivation in life, and then “care less about laws and regulations,” Dong claimed.
He advised youth not to take up that lifestyle. “The adverse effects of the ‘fo xi’ mentality can’t be ignored,” Dong wrote.
The Chinese regime has recently stepped up attempts to moderate people’s lifestyle choices.
A day before Dong’s article was published, news emerged that iQiyi, a popular online video platform similar to Netflix, had begun censoring images of male celebrities who wore earrings while appearing on television or video programs. Their earrings were blurred out.
