On a recent trip through China, I was struck by the contrast between its classrooms and its city streets.

In the schoolrooms, the hallmarks of collectivist education were everywhere: uniforms, strict timetables, long hours of study and the unrelenting push toward exams. Yet beyond the gates, the same students transformed. They gathered in brightly lit shopping centres, posed for selfies, experimented with fashion and make-up and met friends in KFC or McDonald’s outlets that function as much as social hubs as they do restaurants.

The paradox was striking. China has been defined for decades by collectivism, with its schools designed to cultivate loyalty, discipline and national progress. But the youth culture I witnessed thrived on individual presentation, consumer choice and digital visibility. The question is not simply whether this is Westernisation, but whether China’s famed collectivist ethos is being reshaped by the subtle infiltration of neoliberal logic.

China’s education system remains formidable. Nine years of education are compulsory, followed by senior secondary school and the daunting Gaokao university entrance exam. School days are long: a primary school pupil may finish at four in the afternoon, but middle and senior students routinely remain until the evening, with homework pushing their academic load to 11 or more hours a day. Some elite schools operate almost like military camps, enforcing discipline and maximising test performance.

The government’s “Double Reduction” policy introduced in 2021 was meant to ease the burden by reducing homework and limiting tutoring. Yet parents continue to treat education as the ultimate investment in their child’s future, pouring money and time into study. The results are impressive: Chinese provinces dominate international tests such as the OECD’s PISA rankings. But high performance comes with a hidden cost.

Surveys suggest that nearly one in five adolescents in China has a diagnosable mental disorder. Rates of anxiety and depression rise sharply in the middle and senior school years. Well-being steadily declines with age, and girls are especially vulnerable, balancing exam pressure with appearance-related expectations. Teachers describe students who are exhausted, sleep-deprived and disengaged. In this sense, the collective model delivers outcomes but at considerable human expense.

Once school ends, another world comes alive. In neon-lit shopping precincts and fast-food chains, students assert a very different identity. Selfies are ubiquitous, taken and retaken until the desired image is achieved. K-pop and Japanese fashion trends dominate styles. Apps like Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese version) and Xiaohongshu are platforms for curated self-expression. The self becomes a project, a brand.

Fast-food chains play an important role here. KFC is now the largest food chain in China, and its outlets double as meeting places where youth can gather outside parental control. Surveys show that young Chinese consumers are increasingly motivated by “emotional consumption”: spending on experiences, aesthetics and identity rather than pure utility. Fashion, make-up and digital performance are less about necessity than about creating a recognisable self.

But this freedom is not untroubled. Social media fosters comparison, peer pressure and fatigue. Studies indicate that heavy social media use can undermine well-being, with young people caught between the desire to display themselves and the exhaustion of constant visibility. The counter-space of individuality can replicate the pressures of school, simply in a new form.

What appears as cultural change can also be read as part of a deeper transformation: the rise of neoliberal logic in China. In Mao’s era, individuals were bound tightly to the collective. Identity came through class, political loyalty and the work unit. But since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms of the late 1970s, citizens have been increasingly encouraged to see themselves as entrepreneurs of their own lives.

Education is the clearest example. Schools remain collectivist in rhetoric, but in practice education is treated as an investment in human capital. Families behave like entrepreneurs of their children, pouring resources into tutoring and elite pathways. Success and failure are privatised, framed as the responsibility of parents and students rather than the collective.

Youth culture reflects the same shift. Appearance becomes capital. A carefully crafted selfie, a fashionable outfit, or a growing follower count can all serve as social and even economic assets. What might look like Westernisation, the bubble tea, the K-pop inspired style is in fact neoliberalism translated into a Chinese idiom: the value of the self as brand.

The paradox is stark. Schools enforce conformity, discipline and loyalty to the state, while society increasingly rewards individuality, visibility and consumer identity. Today’s youth must embody both: obedient student and curated persona, loyal citizen and self-managing individual.

Collectivism has not disappeared. It has been reshaped. In a society where state institutions no longer provide the same safety nets, the family has re-emerged as the core unit of security. Parents invest heavily in their children, while young adults continue to rely on family for housing and support. This “neo-familism” provide continuity in an era of risk and competition.

Consumerism also creates new collectives. Young people find belonging in fandoms, groups of fans of a particular sort of diversion, gaming groups and online communities built around taste and lifestyle. These are voluntary and fluid collectives, very different from the work units of the Maoist period, but no less powerful in shaping identity.

Nationalism is another form of re-collectivisation. The “Guochao” (national trend) movement celebrates Chinese brands and cultural symbols, offering a way for young people to merge individual style with patriotic belonging. The state harnesses this trend, co-opting consumer culture as a vehicle for loyalty.

Yet some resist both collectivism and neoliberal pressure. The “lying flat” (tang ping) phenomenon reflects young people opting out of relentless competition, embracing a minimalist lifestyle rather than endless striving. “Sang” culture, with its memes of burnout and disillusionment, voices a generational fatigue. These movements signal quiet refusals to accept either exam-driven collectivism or the demands of neoliberal performance.

China’s youth are navigating a hybrid landscape. They are expected to be disciplined students and loyal citizens, while also acting as entrepreneurs of themselves in a consumer-driven society. The pressure of this dual role produces resilience but also strain. The paradox I observed, uniformed schoolgirls by day, fashion-conscious influencers by night captures this tension.

For outside observers, it is tempting to see this simply as Westernisation. But it is better understood as China’s own version of neoliberal modernity: a fusion of state collectivism and market individualism, constantly negotiated by its youth. Collectivism has not vanished; it has been hollowed, fractured and rebuilt in new forms. Whether this hybrid can sustain the next generation, or whether the strain will deepen into crisis, remains an open question.

What stayed with me was not the official rhetoric but the sight of schoolgirls congregating in a KFC booth, phones raised for endless selfies. It was a reminder that cultural change often shows itself in the smallest of details: the drift from collective identity to self-presentation, from uniformity to performance, from state-defined values to consumer-driven ones.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.