The New Radicals — page 3

It's easy, then, to understand why the control-obsessed Party isn't terrified of linglei, why labor camps aren't filled with cliques of neon-hued punk wannabes or herds of dropout Bill Gates types. Superficially, China's linglei are suitably outré: the piercings, the leather jackets, the defiant dropout pose affected even by nerdy kids like IT entrepreneur Wu. But, in many ways, linglei are like dogs wearing electric collars that know just how far they can stray without getting shocked. No one's jumping the invisible fence, because if they do, they might just end up in a gulag. "We're distracted by all these new things, like new clothes or new computer games," says Chun. "It doesn't give us too much time to think about politics."

Unlike the truly oppressed—impoverished farmers, disenfranchised migrants, desperate workers laid off from state factories—linglei have a voice. But what stand do you take when you belong to a privileged group that can buy all the leather and Starbucks mochas you want? "Our parents had a lot of unhappiness, but when they were growing up, they couldn't express it," says Li, whose parents pay for his tuition and pocket money at the Modern Life Art Institute. "We have a chance to express ourselves more, but it's harder to know what we're unhappy about." In the end, perhaps the linglei fear they may just become another consumer group buying linglei products marketed by ads teeming with linglei models. "Everybody wants to be a linglei now," says writer Han. "It's so boring. It makes me want to do something else."

Man Zhou, too, felt he had to move on. The Shanghai native gained notoriety in the most linglei of professions: computer hacking. By the time he was in middle school, he could worm his way into hundreds of government and company servers in a single evening. By age 17, he had published a book about his hacking exploits and started a software company. But for every accolade he won as an independent linglei came an admonishment for being a bad influence in society. Man tried to ignore the criticism, but eventually he couldn't handle the pressure. "Every mistake I made was magnified because I was representing a generation of linglei," he recalls. In the summer of 2000, just as his IT company was taking off, he found himself teetering on the balcony of his family's sixth-floor apartment, contemplating suicide. It was only his father's soothing words and the comforting smell of his mother's cooking wafting outside that kept him from taking the plunge. "At first, I thought I had limitless choices in my life," Man says. "But then I realized that linglei need to grow up and adapt to society. Maybe it's different in America, but in China our culture forces us to smooth out our rough edges and become just another square person."

	At least we dared to be different, we dared to dream. —MAN ZHOU, 20   The Tycoon

So today, China's rebel hacker is just another third-year computer-science student at Fudan University. His criticisms of school as a drain of creativity are a relic of the past. Since he'd never finished high school, Man had to get special permission from the Ministry of Education in Beijing to attend Fudan, an intricate ritual of obeisance that took nine months. Still, there are vestiges of Man's former defiance. Although Fudan doesn't allow its students to run businesses without official permission, Man quietly operates a search-engine software firm on the side, under a pseudonym. Already, the company has offices in Bangkok and will soon open branches in Brazil, Japan and Vietnam. But breaking the rules doesn't give Man many thrills anymore. "I have so much responsibility, so many employees who depend on me," he says, hunching his shoulders against the cold wind blowing through Fudan's campus. "I have no time to be a linglei anymore." Man adjusts the scarf around his neck and announces that years of all-nighters are finally catching up with him: he has chronic bronchitis and migraine headaches. Man is only 20. Still, on good days, when he isn't worried about paychecks for his programmers in Bangkok or cramming for a college exam, he thinks back fondly on his days as a rebel. "At least we dared to be different, we dared to dream," Man says, a little wistfully. "For a while, we allowed our true personalities to shine through."

Chun in Beijing knows that if she's going to keep it real, she needs more than big paychecks from publishing houses or the new Calvin Klein perfume. Maybe that's why she's slumming it with her punk friend Li in a shack off a dirt path stained with puddles of frozen urine. Chun has a comfortable room back home in the military compound, but it's only among her punk-rocker friends, in a room with a bare lightbulb and a blanket pockmarked with cigarette burns, that she feels truly alive. "We have to constantly challenge ourselves," she says. "Otherwise we'll lose our ability to think and create." Then she leans back on Li's leather-clad shoulder, and together they hum the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the U.K. Together, this pair of rebels without a cause has made a pact: may they never return to the mainstream, even though they have no idea where it is they want to go.

With reporting by Bu Hua/Shanghai and Zhou Xingping/Beijing

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