Chinese boys train to be ‘real men’ to fight the BTS idol effect, but the make-up could be here to stay
- Anxious about their boys becoming ‘sissy pants’ men who wear make-up and earrings, some Chinese parents are taking a hard-line approach
- But looking like a K-pop star or Jackson Yee will not make a young man unpopular with Chinese women, while not every male wants to look like a tough guy
It is minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) the morning two dozen boys gather at a Beijing park to be transformed into alpha males. The wind bites, worsening nerves as the boys – the youngest seven years old – prepare to strip to their waists for a run.
One of the watching mothers is worried. She wants her son to grow into a macho male, but it’s so cold. She tells him he can keep his shirt on, or perhaps skip the run through Olympic Forest Park.
This is the kind of “feminine” parenting that coach Tang Haiyan fears can ruin boys. Tang, a former schoolteacher, founded the Real Man Training Club to combat what he and others in China see as a masculinity crisis. It is part of a backlash against the make-up- and earring-wearing male pop idols and actors who have gained immense popularity in the country.
“If you are promoting these effeminate figures, it’s a calamity for our country,” Tang said.
In a nation where men dominate political and business leadership and campaigns for gender equality have gained little traction, the debate over what is “effeminate” has become a popular pastime among older conservative residents, and mostly among men.