To you, the words “Winning on the starting line” might sound like an uncreative quote from a failed inspirational speech, but to Chinese kids growing up in the 2000s and beyond, these words haunt their most terrifying nightmares. This phrase refers to the idea of parents pulling children ahead of the pack by forcing them to start learning academic material early and taking booster courses outside of school. It’s a great illustration of the growing-up experience in modern China–from a young age, adults make it clear that academic excellence is the only goal in life for children; they must rise above their peers in competition and base their self-esteem solely on an arbitrary number marked by a red pen. Take a look at this adorable photo of a little girl with her dog. In the background, a whiteboard reads “4015 days until Cherry attends the national college entrance exam.” Now try to imagine what this little girl goes through every day. Is the picture still as wholesome?
Naturally, these values persist into adulthood and shape how members of society interact with each other. Notably, they gave birth to some common yet painfully frustrating problems that impact the lives of millions. Since their elder mentors teach children that success at school is to be valued above all else, when they grow up to become parents, this belief becomes the golden rule for interacting with their descendants. Disastrous breakdowns and physical violence over grades are prevalent across families of all backgrounds in China. Due to how normalized the behavior is, parents usually face no consequences, and some even work up the audacity to show pictures of their beaten children on social media. Even in families that don’t practice abuse, the overemphasis on test scores can make parents overlook emotional support for their children. Language such as “it’s for your own good” and “I work day and night to provide for you, and you repay me with an 89% on this exam” can deal long-term damage to a child’s mental health and yet are widely used. As a result, family relationships and the concept of family remain something to be avoided, resented, or even feared in the hearts of many.
Since adults don’t respect youths as people and instead evaluate them by numbers throughout their upbringing, that’s how they learn to treat others once they enter society. Since they no longer receive grades, they often use money as the only measuring parameter for a person’s worth. Just like how children who received low scores were beaten and yelled at, adults of the lower income classes are often severely disrespected and mistreated. Occupations such as janitors, waiters, and delivery drivers are popular subjects for ridicule amongst the middle and upper classes; their services receive no appreciation, their higher class customers often act entitled and demanding, and some even point fingers at them while telling kids “If you don’t study now, you’ll be like them one day.”
Furthermore, those working low-paying jobs, especially men, face challenges when finding a partner. Marriage is more of an expectation than a choice in China; families often pressure or even force their youngest generation to marry after a certain age. However, it can be difficult for physically and emotionally abused people to find love, so they resort to what they know best–measuring by numbers. The most common form of dating in China is known as “xiangqin,” or a meetup between two potential partners, usually introduced by friends or family, to discuss the possibility of a relationship. In reality, xiangqin is more like a job interview than a date–both sides usually inquire the other about their higher education institution, occupation, salary, and family relationships. The woman will then indicate her required amount of bridewealth, a sum of money paid by the groom to the bride's family that’s designed as a filter for the financial capability of a potential partner. Men who attempt to date women who require a bridewealth beyond their economic class are often labeled as clowns and scoffed at, while traditionally unattractive women are treated similarly if they ask for a high bridewealth. One can view this dating culture as reducing men to numbers and reducing women to objects, an unpleasant situation for all parties involved.
It’s a profoundly toxic society like this that gave birth to the elephant in the room today. Sand sculpture (Chinese internet term for “idiotic” or “moronic”) animations are a subgenre of animated shorts that recently started to gain traction on Douyin, the Chinese exclusive version of TikTok. As their name suggests, these videos don’t tend to impress at first glance–the graphics are rough, the movements are simple, and the overall presentation is always comedically stupid. What makes them shine is the type of plot they incorporate. Writers for these videos first familiarize themselves with the most common life grievances of the general, usually including the ones discussed earlier. Then, for a grievance of their choice, the writers carefully craft a story that provides a relieving escape from the reality of the problem. Now, the roughness of the production can play into what the artwork is trying to convey–a hilarious, light-hearted take on a serious social issue experienced by many that creates an alternative world of escape that the victims of these problems desperately yearn for. The unique way these videos fulfill the need for relief for millions has built them a dedicated and ever-growing following on Douyin; some creators are able to turn full-time, further pushing the potential of this subgenre.
Sand sculpture animations will usually include some standard elements. First up is the protagonist; this is the character who always falls victim to the societal issues addressed in the animation, making them the most relatable character to the audience. However, unlike their real-life counterparts, the main character usually possesses a power or layer of secret identity such as the ability to predict the future or a multimillion-dollar net worth. Next up is the antagonist; this is the character who actively performs the social misbehavior chosen for the animation. For instance, if the story is about domestic violence, the antagonist will be the one delivering a beating. The plot will use this dynamic to lead the audience to sympathize with the protagonist and develop resentment towards the antagonist. Towards the end of the story, the main character uses their secret ability to put the antagonist in their place. This turning point in the plot progression is the key to delivering a sense of satisfaction and escape, and it’s this sudden rush of pleasure that keeps the audience of sand sculpture animations coming back for more.
Let’s take a look at an actual example. The main character of the story is a delivery driver who secretly owns multiple billion-dollar businesses. He arrives at a bank to withdraw money at a VIP window, but the receptionist refuses service due to his delivery driver's uniform. A wealthy-looking man arrives at the scene, and the receptionist immediately puts on a smile to serve the man, ignoring the protagonist. When confronted for cutting the line, the man proceeds to mock the protagonist for his occupation and the receptionist chimes in by calling security to remove the main character from the building, even after he clarifies that he has a billion yuan in his account. The protagonist asks the receptionist to check his balance, and she does so in order to make a clown of him after revealing his poverty, only to see that he actually has a billion yuan in his account. Then comes the twist in the story: the protagonist decides that he has had enough and demands to withdraw all the money from his account. The receptionist panics as this would destroy the bank and calls the manager. They profusely apologize for their behavior and make a promise that from now on, VIP windows will be open to everyone. This video is targeted towards a lower-income audience who frequently face mistreatment in real life due to their class status. The build-up invites the audience to put themselves in the place of this delivery driver, and when the twist takes place, it feels as if the people who disrespected the listener themself is apologizing for their actions, providing an instant shot of gratification. Depending on the plot of the story, each animation will have a slightly different target audience, but since the societal crisis chosen in these videos is always one experienced by many, the content will always have a broad appeal.
If you’re reading this text and clicked to watch the example, chances are that you couldn’t understand a single word in the video. Since sand sculpture animations originated from Douyin and stayed on Douyin, no work published under this subgenre has been written in English, making all videos inaccessible to a Western audience. Just because something isn’t available doesn’t mean there is no demand for it; every society produces problems frequently experienced by the general public, and there is a need for people to find an escape from them. The subreddit r/ProRevenge is an example of a popular English platform where stories are shared to serve a similar purpose, and tens of thousands of users tune in on a daily basis. This project was my attempt to fulfill that demand; as a bilingual student with a sufficient understanding of both languages and cultures, I committed to bringing sand sculpture animations to a Western audience.
I tried to stay as faithful to the original subgenre’s style as I could and followed a similar thought process for the writing. First, I identified common life frustrations through a form sent to the MiW program and supplemented the data with internet resources such as the subreddit mentioned earlier. Given the estimated time consumption, I selected 4 topics and created 5 short animations. For each topic, I followed the standard for a sand sculpture story: create a main character, create antagonists, and prepare a twist to deliver the satisfaction of defeating the frustration. Through this project, I wanted to explore the potential for this subgenre of animation and see if even set in a different language and a different set of social concerns, the core and spirit of sand sculpture animations can still succeed in fulfilling their purpose.
Before this project, I had no experience with animating. Creating these videos completely from scratch was out of the question–even if I managed to teach myself the necessary art skills, 10 weeks would not be enough time to produce enough content for a coherent story. Fortunately, sand sculpture animations have gained enough of a consumer base to attract the attention of a few commercial animator services, some of which provide asset libraries in their style. Out of the options I had, Wancai seemed to be the best choice for a beginner.
Running on a college student’s budget, which is none, quickly started to present some issues. The trial version of the software only allowed 5 scenes per animation, and to work around this restriction, I split each animation into two parts. After the parts were rendered individually, I would use Shotcut to splice the sections into one video. Just as I thought I had things figured out, this would prove to be far from the most prickly of problems. Wancai’s built-in libraries are my source for all of the character assets, but some of the animations are poorly cropped, sized, or aligned. As a result, every time a character’s animation changes, I need to add sizing, rotation, and shifting effects to the character within a few frames, drastically increasing the work time of every animation.
The earlier animation mostly consisted of multiple shorter scenes, but when I got to the later animations that focused on long single scenes, I ran into another issue. Camera zooms and pans are used as an indication of the insertion of narration in the middle of a dialogue, and the longer the scene, the more camera movement there needs to be. However, the trial version of Wancai only allows for 5 camera movements per scene. I spent a handful of hours pulling my hair out over this issue before finding a rather painful solution–every time I reached the camera limit, I would make a copy of the scene. In this duplicate scene, I would remove all audio and camera movements up to the point where the original scene ended. Then, I would continue animating normally since this copied scene did not include any of the camera movements in the original. When the animation is rendered, I would manually cut out the silent duplicate portion of the scene and splice the two scenes together to form one coherent scene. I was quite proud of this solution despite how unrefined it is–without being able to include narration camera movements, to the audience, the later animations would appear rigid and rough for no particular reason.
The problems I had to tackle and the amount of time required to produce these animations brewed a newfound appreciation for the creators of the original subgenre on Douyin. As just a regular consumer, I didn’t grasp the concept of how much effort went behind these videos. It wasn’t until it took me two weeks to make something they published multiple times a week that I realized some of them must have been doing this as a full-time job and that some of them might have been working well over 8 hours a day. The previously annoying sponsorships in these videos suddenly appeared completely understandable. Comments about how uploads are slow, some of which I even sympathized with before, suddenly appeared unreasonable and rude. It also became clear to me why some creators would choose to suddenly terminate their channels–making a profit from them was not easy, and the amount of work required to bring these videos to life was simply too much. I valued the experience of putting myself in the shoes of one of these animators, and I hope you enjoyed a sample of this wacky genre that I wish the best for in the future.
It can be difficult to do away with generations of pain. From the Keju exam that ran for 1300 years to the modern-day Gaokao, competitive education and examination systems have always been present in Chinese culture and will continue to be in the foreseeable future. With such systems in place, families will have no choice but to continue holding the bar high for their children. Indeed, the bigger picture hasn’t changed much; the national college entrance exam is still eating the flesh and drinking the blood of youths as we speak, and reports of violence both in the classroom and at home have not shown signs of stopping. Just a few days ago, I came across a Douyin short where a young boy was laughed at by policemen to whom he attempted to report domestic abuse. The absolute lack of empathy in the breaths of their scoffs was agonizing to witness.
However, that is not to say that things won’t improve at all. Despite its undeniable presence, adult-on-children violence has noticeably decreased in prevalence over the last few decades. In the 1970s, very few children grew up without experiencing physical abuse, and many suffered injuries from severe beatings. Nowadays, it has become unacceptable for parents to administer punishments that will cause serious harm, more are becoming aware of the negative consequences of domestic violence, and teachers who hit students are now a small minority of the education workforce.
This can perhaps be attributed to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It shouldn’t be surprising that China today is a completely different place than it was in the 1970s; as the basic needs of the general population are met, more people will start to work for self-esteem and self-actualization. There has been a popular meme on the Chinese internet recently: a boss asks four employees to work overtime; the 70’s guy says, certainly, my lord; the 80’s guy says, alright, but only if you pay me extra; the 90’s guy says, nope, I leave when my shift ends; the 00’s guy says, your job sucks, I quit. While this meme was meant to scrutinize the increasing laziness across generations, I see it as an indication that people are becoming more aware of their well-being. As the younger generations grow up in a time with less economic hardship, they start to find the actions of their elders unacceptable since these actions violate their pursuit of self-esteem and self-actualization. As they grow up, they start to carry less of the habits of their parents into their own household. I wish that sometime in the future, perhaps even in my lifetime, the world that I grew up in and still hold dearly becomes a warmer place than it was when I chose to depart.