This is the third part of a series on lost landscapes by Stephanie LaCava. Read the first part here. Read the second part here.

Stephanie LaCava on Artistic Youth, False Geo-Tagging, and the Poetry of Aram Saroyan

Some time ago, I received a request over email from a young woman based in London. Her address did not contain a name, but a word I did not understand followed by the year 1990. She asked to interview me for a Chinese story on “Artistic Youth.” As she explained it to me, the term, call it AY for ease, speaks to a subculture that has gone through three phases in its Chinese incarnation.

Between 1912 and 1949, AY spoke out about feudal forces. In the 1980s, when China became a free market, AY were hopeful dreamers, writers who “wrote the country’s change, their experience and dreams into their works,” and became beloved by the nation. For many famous writers who came from working-class families and the army, the AY represented hope for the new political and cultural landscape. The third and most recent installment was not so promising. AY has become twisted, distorted, a kind of pretentious lifestyle. Of this last phase, she wrote:

It’s more about how to look like an AY rather than what it used to refer to. One of the reasons is that the growth of social media has allowed people to create an illusion about their life or personality online. Many young people pretend to be AY and present an image that is just emotional with no social capabilities or any contribution, making the society think AY are irresponsible with useless imagination. More and more people forget that the AY are supposed to be intellectual with profound knowledge on the fields that they truly love. Another reason is that in China most people are pursuing material achievement, they are utilitarian and tend to judge others according to their own value standards. Therefore being romantic and sentimental is undesired, and the work of literature and art seems to be devalued. Many young people have to give up their pride and dream under the pressure of the reality.

She mentioned she had read and loved a book of essays I’d done three years ago about growing up overseas, a self-obsessed, unwell teenage girl. Above all, it was the story of a very curious girl. We spoke on the phone and emailed a few times. The story appeared in a Chinese magazine. She discussed the changing landscape of AY, and how she is hopeful that this faction is coming back around to represent its older meaning. We unapologetically begin following one another on Instagram. I know it’s...