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Chinese Post80s Generational Resilience: Chengyu ( )

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Adaptation and Change

Ziyu Long1, Patrice M. Buzzanell2, and Kai Kuang3

Abstract
The combined forces of China’s reforms, resurgent traditional values, and
problematic labor market have led the Chinese Post80s generation to reconstruct
their careers. Drawing on 33 in-depth interviews, this study examines how Post80s
professionals communicatively constitute resilience as they utilize and transform
meanings of chengyu (成语, Chinese four-word idiom encapsulating shared values).
Guided by chengyu, Post80s construct resilience processes from temporal (past-
present-future), relational (self-other-collective), and introspective perspectives
(passion-practice). As discursive cultural resources of resilience, chengyu legitimize
choices, frame actions, inspire ways of managing change and expectations, and offer
comfort in difficult times. This study expands resilience research to a non-Western
context and highlights how cultural and generational discourses can mobilize agency
in the constitution of resilience. Findings offer practical implications in promoting
and cultivating resilience.

Keywords
resilience, chengyu, career, Chinese Post80s, organizational communication

Resilience, a process activated when humans experience disruption, is critical for indi-
viduals and communities not only in disastrous or traumatic situations but also in every-
day hardships ( Bonanno, 2004; Buzzanell, 2010, 2018). Scholars have theorized

1ColoradoState University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

2The Department of Communication, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA
3Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Ziyu Long, Communication Studies, Colorado State University, 1783 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO
80523-1783, USA.
Email: ziyulong@colostate.edu
2 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

communication approaches to human resilience and strategies for resilience-producing

interactions (Buzzanell, 2018 Doerfel & Harris, 2017; Hall, 2016; Long et al., 2015).
Despite their calls to understand resilience as constituting processes in different con-
texts, research is only beginning to explicate how resilience is enacted drawing from
cultural and generational resources with none investigating the community of Post80s
generational professionals in China.
Although every generational cohort faces unique circumstances in which they uti-
lize their values and understandings of the world to act in complex and significant
ways (Hansen & Leuty, 2012; Joshi, Dencker, Franz, & Martocchio, 2010; Lyons, Ng,
& Schweitzer, 2014), at 240 million members in a political-economic national super-
power, the Chinese Post80s generation (born: 1980-1989) is one of the largest and
most influential cohorts in today’s global workforce and politics. Urban Chinese
Post80s face many challenges as they consider current work, career aspirations, and
perceived precarious futures in terms of income, return on investment, ability to fulfill
familial obligations, and position in Chinese and global economies. Identifying these
struggles and how their responses are culturally situated provides insights for organi-
zational communication scholarship and development of Post80s generational
workers.
Drawing from scholarship on occupational narratives (Lucas & Buzzanell, 2004),
metaphors and frames (Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015), and memorable messages
(Lucas & Buzzanell, 2011; Medved, Brogan, McClanahan, Morris, & Shepherd,
2006) that serve as discursive resources to generate resilience and socialize intergen-
erationally, we position Post80s’ constitution of resilience as influenced and guided
by Chinese chengyu (成语). Chengyu are idioms that crystallize traditional Chinese
ethics and philosophies (e.g., Taoism, Confucianism) and function as linguistic
expressions widely used and implicitly referenced today (Guo & Hu, 2010). The
ethics, wisdom, heroes, and storylines underlying chengyu reinforce cultural iden-
tity, surface predominant values, and reveal pathways for reintegrating after set-
backs. This study unpacks the nuances of cultural and generational construction of
resilience in everyday work by identifying how cultural philosophies and sayings,
appropriated by individuals and communities, enable resilience in particular spatio-
temporal-generational locations. Our study further explicates how discursive
resources such as chengyu are mobilized to induce and cultivate resilience not only
to respond to but also anticipate hardships. We also contribute to the communication
theory of resilience by indicating how resilience constituted by Chinese Post80s
professionals is multifaceted. Their focus on overcoming everyday workplace obsta-
cles to bring together self-other, past-present-future, personally satisfying and soci-
etally contributing work into lifelong flexible careers required the values and insights
of chengyu. Finally, we respond to the call of communication scholars (e.g., Hanchey
& Berkelaar, 2015; Kang, Jia, & Ju, 2016; Mitra, 2015) to disentangle Western influ-
ences on non-Western, particularly Chinese, organizational communication and pro-
mote greater understandings and applications of the forms and functions of Chinese
philosophies and their linguistic manifestations (chengyu) for resilience in career
and organizational life.
Long et al. 3

Literature Review
A Communicative Perspective to Resilience
The communicative perspective situates resilience in human interaction constituted by
discursive and material resources (Buzzanell, 2018). Studies of human resilience sug-
gest that the processes through which people (re)integrate and transform difficulties
often coincide with what is meaningful to them within the sociocultural and commu-
nication infrastructures of their communities (Aldrich & Meyer, 2015; Buzzanell,
2010; Houston, Spialek, Cox, Greenwood, & First, 2015; Xu, 2013). Although past
research depicted human resilience as atypical, scholars and practitioners now regard
resilience as everyday processes (Afifi & Keith, 2004; Bonanno, 2004; Buzzanell,
2010, 2018; Long et al., 2015). They consider human resilience to be common and just
as important to individual and community renewal as repairs to physical infrastruc-
tures (Doerfel & Harris, 2017), noting that culturally patterned strategies differ
(Houston et al., 2015; Luthar, Doernberger, & Zigler, 1993; Ulturgasheva, 2014). To
capture the everyday constitution of resilience, Ungar (2004) conceptualizes resilience
as “the outcome from negotiations between individuals and their environment for the
resources to define themselves as healthy amidst conditions collectively viewed as
adverse” (p. 342). Similarly, Agarwal and Buzzanell (2015) describe resilience as
“intersubjectively constructed through co-crafting productive narratives, identities,
emotions, and networks that enable reintegration and/or transformation after change”
(p. 415). Both highlight that individuals have agency in drawing upon and negotiating
contextual resources by which they adapt to, and/or transform collectively viewed
adverse conditions.
Resilience processes happen in the moment but also develop productive discursive
and material patterns for the future (Long et al., 2015; Lucas & Buzzanell, 2012;
Villagran, Canoza, & Ledford, 2013; Wilson & Gettings, 2012). These anticipatory
processes are captured in memories invoked by particular materialities (e.g., foods
distributed during economic downturns, see Lucas & Buzzanell, 2011), in narratives
(e.g., post-Wenchuan earthquake story sharing, see Xu, 2013), in phrases aligned with
identity anchors and community values (Lucas & Buzzanell, 2004; Villagran et al.,
2013), and in perceived meaningfulness of actions and events (e.g., “calling” among
Chinese students, see Zhang, Dik, Wei, & Zhang, 2015). Language (e.g., memorable
messages, occupational stories, and colloquiums) provides root metaphors and stories
that help people create new normals, construct identities, and foreground productive
action (Buzzanell, 2010; see also Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015; Lucas & Buzzanell,
2004, 2011, 2012). These discursive resources rooted in cultural contexts integrate
into identities (Medved et al., 2006) and become activated in situations demanding
adaptive-transformative possibilities (Buzzanell, 2018). Buzzanell and Turner (2003)
demonstrated how families use phrases and storytelling to reconstruct normalcy by
portraying their current and pre-job loss lives as similar. Crafting norms helped them
regain control, preserve dignity, and foreground positive outlooks and actions. Lucas
and Buzzanell (2004) explored how occupational narratives that people tell at and
about work enable them to redefine career success and find dignity in their work.
4 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

Agarwal and Buzzanell (2015) studied how disaster-relief workers enact resilience to
overcome emotional and physical challenges. They use discursive frames such as fam-
ily, humanitarian work ethics, and spiritual callings in handling tensions encountered
in extreme work contexts. This body of research highlights the role of discursive
resources in constituting individual and collective resilience. Extending this scholar-
ship, we study resilience constitution in a non-Western context.

Cultural Discursive Resilience Resources in China

As one of the most neglected topics in the study of resilience, culture is foundational
to shaping resources and practices to cope with adversity (Liebenberg, Ikeda, & Wood,
2015; Panter-Brick, 2015). For example, Liebenberg et al. (2015) found that cutlural
resources–the collectivist worldview of Aboriginal life philosophies that emphasizes
holistic understandings of support including ancestors, linguistic choices, spirituality,
well-being, and the environment–shape how resilience is enacted in Aboriginal com-
munities. Despite cultural variations, extant resilience research has relied mostly on
North American empirical data and constructs anchored in Eurocentric epistemology
(Ungar, 2008).
A few scholars have studied resilience processes of Chinese youth and children
(Stewart & Sun, 2007), victims of natural disasters (Xu, 2013), marginalized members
such as farmers in degrading ecological environments (Van Haaften, Yu, & Van De
Vijver, 2004), and urban migrant workers (Wong & Song, 2008). These studies focus
on individual’s sensemaking about adversity and what she or he perceives to be behav-
ioral options for resilience processes in China. Wong and Song (2008) studied the
relationship of stress and meaning of migration of migrant workers in Shanghai. They
found that strong/positive meanings of migration (e.g., bringing money to the family,
improving status) promote resilience development. Female migrant workers achieved
better mental health because they could construct more positive meanings of their cur-
rent life stressors. Shek (2005) investigated how traditional Chinese cultural beliefs of
adversity encapsulated in chengyu influence adolescents’ resilience behaviors.
Adolescents with stronger endorsement of positive Chinese beliefs about adversity
(e.g., Zhi zu chang le, happy is she or he who is contented; You zhi zhe shi jing cheng,
when there is a will, there is a way) attained better psychological well-being and
adjustment. Lee, Kwong, Cheung, Ungar, and Cheung (2010) also investigated the
relationship between resilience-related beliefs and positive child development, con-
cluding that “resilience beliefs are a cognitive resource contributing to the mainte-
nance of quality of life in the face of adversity” (p. 449). Despite important insights
regarding the role cultural discourses play in resilience constitution in China, these
studies are limited in presenting a robust picture of how cultural discursive resources
are mobilized by individuals to enact resilience in situated contexts. A grounded
approach privileging participants’ voices and accounts is also needed to add greater
specificity and cultural insights.
Taking communicative and cultural perspectives, this study focuses on how Post80s
professionals use chengyu in constituting resilience in the workplace. Chengyu are
Long et al. 5

classified as cultural narratives consisting of sociologically significant stories that sus-

tain social worlds (Richardson, 1990). Different from other cultural narratives, most
chengyu are based on stories and events that can be traced back thousands of years.1
Similar to how Western cultural understandings of the frontier (Harter, 2004), meritoc-
racy (“cream rises to the top”), and steadfast determination and “can do” attitude
(Lucas & Buzzanell, 2004), chengyu guide communicative behavior even when phras-
ing is not invoked explicitly. Frequently used in contemporary Chinese language,
chengyu provide natural discursive sites to explore cultural and generational under-
standings of adversity and resilience. The meanings of chengyu cannot be inferred
from their elements but need to be considered within specific cultural and historical
contexts. Such meanings are (re)collected, adapted, and contextualized. Individuals’
use of chengyu “reside in relation to other collectives’ [generations’] landscapes of
meaning” just as places offer sites for collective memories (Aden et al., 2009, p. 324)
that then operate as resilience-producing agents (Buzzanell, 2018).

Workplace Adversity for Post80s Generational Workers

The Post80s cohort2 is important because of its size, positioning between reformed and
emerging policies and practices, and transformational potential. Their own and others’
understandings of their motivations and expectations pose challenges as this genera-
tion bridges past and future to deal with webs of interconnecting issues unique to them
and their worlds. Post80s are members of the first generational cohort in China born
into a society that was beginning the Reform and Opening Up. This society was and is
dealing with effects of one child policies, establishing new employment and labor
practices, witnessing massive rural-to-urban migration, navigating soft power diplo-
macy, and becoming increasingly global, capitalistic, consumerist, and entrepreneurial
(Z. Cheng, Smyth, & Guo, 2015; Wallis, 2013). Professional Post80s are expected to
change China and Chinese workplaces because of their education, Internet sophistica-
tion, and opportunities (Sun & Wang, 2010).
Raised as the focus of familial attention and material resources given their status as
the first generation born under One Child policy,3 Post80s professionals experience
pressures aligned with self- and other-expectations for return on investment and secur-
ing satisfactory (or better) incomes for current lifestyles and support of parents and
grandparents (i.e., strong filial piety and intergenerational caregiving norms). They
face these expectations in an economy where characteristics of good jobs are contested
(Long, 2016). In addition, Post80s deal with increased competition because of limited
jobs and global economy crisis (Long et al., 2015; Long, Buzzanell, & Kuang, 2016).
China has witnessed significant increase of the number of university graduates annu-
ally since 2001, with 7.49 million graduating in 2017 (Chinese Education Online,
2017). Although their material well-being and living conditions are much better than
those of their parents at this point in their lives, the cost of living also is higher (Sabet,
2011). Other difficulties faced by Chinese Post80s professionals include gloomy
employment prospects and employment markets increasingly skewed to the well-born
and exceptionally well-connected (Long et al., 2016). Examining how Post80s
6 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

generational cohort members communicatively constitute resilience amid profound

societal disruptions, unmet work and career expectations by self and others, and exten-
sive future obligations offers important implications for how they interact to build a
new normal in Chinese society and workforce. To understand Post80s’ resilience
enactment, we ask: How do Chinese Post80s professionals communicatively consti-
tute resilience guided by chengyu?

Method
Participants
Participants were 33 professionals working in urban areas across China. Slightly more
women (54.5%) participated in our study. Participants were born during the 1980s and
averaged 26 years old (range: 24-30 years). They worked in entry- (82%) to middle-
level positions or above (18%) in public (36%) and private sectors (64%) in various
industries, including health, media, arts, communications, and business. All earned at
least college degrees and were only children and native speakers of Mandarin.

Procedures
Guanxi-Based Data Collection. Participants were recruited through convenience sam-
pling by the authors who were Post80s generational members.4 Using their guanxi or
social capital and network connections (Barbalet, 2015; Kriz, Gummesson, & Quazi,
2014), these authors not only had access to the stories of their peers but also were
familiar with participants’ experiences, values, and language. Data were collected
through semistructured interviews to capture the participants’ own words and career
sense making. Questions requested reflections and stories about their work, career
trajectories, goals and motivations, positive and negative experiences, as well as aspi-
rations and hopes. Rather than asking Post80s to define resilience or chengyu, we were
more interested in how resilience manifested itself communicatively and how Post80s
workers reportedly enacted resilience, consciously or unconsciously, in their day-to-
day negotiation of workplace tensions. All interviews were audio-recorded for tran-
scription with participants’ permission. Interviews lasted 60 minutes on average
(range: 30-90 minutes), resulting in 288 single-spaced pages of transcription in Man-
darin. Pseudonyms were used in the transcripts.

Data Analysis. During the interviews and transcriptions, the two bilingual (Mandarin-
English) authors jotted notes about emerging patterns. After transcription, all research-
ers engaged in discussion by following Charmaz’s (2000) social constructionist
approach that considers meanings and knowledge to reside both in and between people
and/or data depending on researchers’ and participants’ positionalities. Data analyses
were conducted in two phases—initial thematic analysis, then focused analysis for lin-
guistic-narrative resources. First, guided by criteria of recurrence, repetition, and force-
fulness (Owen, 1984), the first author (re)read interview transcripts in Mandarin
Long et al. 7

repeatedly and developed themes. To situate the findings in Chinese culture and socio-
economic conditions, the non-Chinese speaking author with expertise in organizational
communication, and the other authors discussed participants’ linguistic choices and
contextual aspects of Chinese workplace. The Mandarin transcripts were analyzed in its
original form and summarized and partially translated into English during discussions.
After initial analysis, we focused on linguistic markers of resilience, moving between
and within broad semantic patterns and colloquial phrasings. These processes consoli-
date interpretations of generational experiences and offer insight into how generational
cohort members construct realities, capture memories, live out their values, and manage
everyday disappointments as well as traumatic experiences (Aden et al., 2009; Hansen
& Leuty, 2012). Through sharing stories and shorthand phrases, generational cohort
members not only made sense of their own and others’ experiences but also crafted
normalcy, adapting to and transforming themselves and the contexts in which they live
(Buzzanell, 2010; Doerfel & Harris, 2017). As such, we looked for natural sites to
explore generational meanings of work and linguistic-narrative resources for construct-
ing resilience, much as sisu characterized grit and determination among iron ore miners
even when they did not invoke the phrase explicitly (Lucas & Buzzanell, 2004).
We noted that the participants often utilize and transform meanings of phrases,
slogans, and ancient proverbs to frame action, reflect upon ways of managing change,
and find comfort in difficult times. We found that their narratives coalesced around
three chengyu. Chengyu was both a linguistic device used by participants to talk about
their workplace experiences, and an analytical device used by researchers to tease out
the essence of Post80s’ constitution of resilience in this study. Although there were
other colloquial expressions used by participants, the three chengyu were present
within and across many interviews, serving as implicit guides for participants and
offering conceptual schemes/structures to tease out different facets of participants’
resilience. After delving into the data, researchers built theoretical insights and looked
for alternative interpretations. Inductive-deductive data-grounded and theory-building
processes continued until all authors agreed upon findings.

Member Reflections. The authors conducted “member reflections” (Tracy, 2010) to

validate data interpretation after initial analysis completion. These reflections allowed
participants and researchers to talk about, critique, and offer feedback about the find-
ings. We conducted member reflections through informal individual and group con-
versations with Post80s professionals in and outside of this project. Whereas these
professionals expressed that they might use other chengyu, they confirmed that our
findings captured the essence of enacting resilience in the current Chinese workplace
and that the three chengyu covered comprehensively different aspects of resilience
despite idiosyncrasies in the Post80s group.

Results
Our analysis revealed that chengyu not only served as discursive resources for resil-
ience in response to work difficulties but also as guides for professionals’ proactive
8 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

cultivation of resilience. By using chengyu, Post80s professionals transcend the pres-

ent and constitute resilience through enactment of key decision premises grounded in
their heritage yet implemented in their lives. Analysis revealed three chengyu that
underlie participants’ communicative constitution of resilience: (a) hou ji bo fa (厚积
薄发)—accumulate intensively for long-term release of energy; (b) shun shi er wei (
顺势而为)—engage in action that situates oneself along with broader trends and
momentums; and (c) de xin ying shou (得心应手)—align work with what the heart
wishes and what the hands accomplish. The three chengyu animate Post80s workplace
resilience as temporal, relational, and embodied processes.

Hou Ji Bo Fa
Post80s participants animated chengyu, hou ji bo fa (accumulate intensively for long-
term release of energy) to deal with current work frustrations. Highlighting traditional
values of persistence, long-term thinking, and “hard work will pay off,” this chengyu
guides Post80s to continue learning and developing themselves for China’s competi-
tive and volatile workplace. Hou ji bo fa has two components: hou (thick, extensive)
ji (accumulation), to learn or accumulate resources/experiences extensively; and bo
(thin, gradual) fa (release), which means to release energy gradually to achieve suc-
cess or sustainable development. Post80s professionals talked about choosing work
that allows them to “hou ji” (accumulate extensively), laying out foundations for “bo
fa” (achieve future success). As Zhu, a media professional, said, “We believe employ-
ees are human, not screws to a big corporate machine [reference of their parents’ gen-
eration’s perceptions of employment]. I not only care about my title and salary, but
also about my opportunities to develop as a professional.”
Guided by hou ji bo fa, many Post80s choose to work in big cities such as Beijing,
Shanghai, and Guangzhou where more professional development opportunities are
available, even though they have to deal with high costs of city living and “unstable”
employment due to fierce competitions. The professionals who live away from their
hometowns and work in foreign cities are called “the piao group” (which translates
into “drifters in the city”).5 They face great financial pressure and many belong to the
“yue guang zu”—the spend-all-your-salary clan—who often need their parents’ finan-
cial support to sustain their living in the city. Yan, an accountant working in Beijing,
earned an average monthly income of US$500 and allocated $200 (40%) to her rent.
She explained the differences in living expenses between the piao group and those
working in their hometowns,

If you are living in a foreign city by yourself, you will spend much more money on rent,
food, and you are all by yourself. If you just work in your hometown, you can live with
your parents, your mother can cook for you and when you are married, your parents can
take care of your kids. So you will have a lower level of financial pressure.

While this extended family support seems ideal, the majority of Post80s profes-
sionals interviewed do not have such material and relational support networks as
Long et al. 9

resilience resources. When speaking about early career financial pressures, Post80s
invoked the logics and philosophies encapsulated in the chengyu of hou ji bo fa.
Drawing from the present-future dimensions of hou ji bo fa, many participants framed
the beginning years of their working lives as times to accumulate, to “expand guanxi
network,” “learn to do the job,” “make mistakes,” “find my passion,” and “try differ-
ent challenges” so as to switch to more meaningful work that best match their interests
and talents in the future. As explained by Zhu,

Now it is not a time to use work in exchange for money or prestige, it’s the time to work
in exchange for experiences. . . . I want to be able to feel that I am absorbing new
experiences and new ideas so I can reap the benefits later.

Zhu tapped into the logic embedded in hou ji bo fa in cultivating resilience in his
career—accumulation without release is aimless, while release without proper accu-
mulation results in burnout. Here, a new normal of work and career is enacted—while
they acknowledge the need to make ends meet and be financially independent, Post80s
believe that early career learning is more important than earning as work experiences
would expedite later success.
In addition to high living costs, Post80s workers faced fierce competition in the
labor market. Many started their career by “da hei gong” (working in the dark, or
informally), that is, working as invisible workers with no labor contract and very little
or no salary, to secure employment. These Post80s professionals usually held tempo-
rary unofficial employment in large organizations such as state-owned enterprises or
the government. Different from unpaid internships, their names and work were not
recognized openly, and they did not receive employment benefits. “Da hei gong” is not
uncommon. According to China’s White Paper on Human Resources Service Industry,
while 1.3% of graduates were willing to accept job offers with “zero salary” in 2009,
statistics skyrocketed to 18% in 2010 (Xiao, 2011).
Despite the disadvantages of da hei gong, Post80s professionals emphasized that
they could accumulate experience and search for internal job opportunities. Jiao, an
invisible worker in a state-owned radio station in Beijing, shared: “I just keep a low
profile and focus on accumulating experiences . . . you will learn from the culture there
and learn about how things should be done by working for renowned and well-estab-
lished organizations.” Similarly, Ping, who held an informal intern position for a gov-
ernment owned nonprofit organization, viewed her current low-paying job as highly
valuable because it offered her “a platform to interact and make connections with
people from higher social status and different backgrounds,” setting a good foundation
for her future career. Guided by hou ji bo fa, both Jiao and Ping framed their experi-
ences as learning processes essential for success. This frame ascribes purpose and
meaningfulness to their experience, enhances esteem of their work, and foregrounds
positive emotions to balance stressors in precarious employment.
In sum, resilience drawn from hou ji bo fa offers Post80s professionals a philoso-
phy of learning and meaningfulness to make sense of past-present-future. The chengyu
surfaces past-present connections and interdependent processes of accumulation and
10 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

release, important to the constitution of resilience for Chinese Post80s professionals.

“Hou ji bo fa” guides Post80s professionals in taking long-term views as they actively
design careers.

Shun Shi Er Wei

Post80s participants also invoked chengyu, shun shi er wei—to engage in action that
situates oneself along with broader trends and momentums—to construct workplace
resilience. Emphasizing on relationships of self-other and individual-collective, this
chengyu provides decision-making premises and guidelines in handling self-other rela-
tionships and positioning oneself in organization/labor markets. It suggests that indi-
viduals should recognize the interconnectivity of self and other and seek harmonious6
relationships of individual and collective, which can enable cultivation of resilience at
multiple levels. Shun shi er wei reinforces Chinese notions of the self, that is the self is
constantly in dialogic relationship with others and the broader community/society
whereby concern and benefit for both self and others are intertwined (Long et al., 2016).
In this four-word idiom, shun means follow/utilize, shi means momentum/existing
state/cultural networks/broader discourse, and er wei means to do things/make deci-
sions. Guided by this chengyu, Post80s actively constructed resilience by integrating
into existing networks and aligning with larger societal resilience processes.
First, shun shi from Post80s’ account can refer to building on existing social net-
work structures within organizations. In this context, shi referred to the Chinese cul-
tural environment in which guanxi was pervasive and critical to professional
development and life quality. All Post80s interviewees mentioned building and
expanding their guanxi as important to workplace resilience. Ling, an HR profes-
sional, articulated:

What I want to get out of work is not money, but more personal connections to expand
my guanxi wang. You were too limited in your immediate network. You need to expand
your network by working, as you can interact with all walks of people. You never know
when you will use them.

Jia, a sales manager, emphasized the importance of maintaining guanxi at work for his
own subjective well-being to stay resilient, “Human beings are social animals and you
need to interact with people.” Others expressed more utilitarian perspectives of guanxi
building, as illustrated by Bin, a journalist for a foreign press,

For my job, the more people I know, the more information I receive and more business
opportunities I can get. Let’s admit that China is a society based on personal connections.
No matter what you do . . . it could be as small as parking your car. If you could handle
the guanxi well, you will enjoy much more convenience in your life. If not, you will meet
a lot of barriers.

Here, shun shi was expressed as to “fit in” the guanxi-based society and establish
extensive guanxi webs for resilience. Post80s internalized the importance of guanxi
Long et al. 11

and actively engaged in creation and maintenance of communication networks to uti-

lize social capital (Buzzanell, 2010; Doerfel & Harris, 2017) in anticipation of future
workplace difficulties.
In addition, shun shi, as discussed by participants, referred to situating themselves
within the larger Chinese political and socioeconomic environment and to seeking
opportunities and policies to their advantage. Shi in this case was considered as broader
trends and opportunities that offer positive prospects. With the State’s push for entre-
preneurship and various incentives (e.g., free risk assessments and reduced taxes) to
encourage college graduates to become self-employed, about a quarter of the Post80s
indicated that they were preparing to launch their own businesses through accumulat-
ing knowledge and social capital from work. Illustrated by Ting,

The reality TV industry is booming. . . . I want to have a TV program of my own, I want

to produce it and integrate ideas I learned along the way. I am now at the beginning stage,
the learning stage.

Following the entrepreneurial momentum, Post80s professionals like Ting embraced neo-
liberal instrumentalist thinking, that is, professionals accumulating knowledge to estab-
lish their own business by working for others (Ong, 2006). Ting’s entrepreneurial
aspiration was grounded in current experience accumulation and in line with the broader
Chinese strategic development for resilience in the current global market. The discursive
positioning of one’s career trajectory in the national plan was evident across interviews.
Shi talked about dropping out of U.S. graduate school to work for China’s newly launched
English News channel, a strategic move to improve soft power and global influence. Shi
shared his career decision: “the work has great prospects—it is one of the national strate-
gic projects with high starting point and immense capital. It is also a brand new project,
with huge potential.” We found that Post80s professionals actively align their personal
values and goals with national strategic initiatives, industry development, and the well-
being of the local community. In so doing, they reframe the personal and collective goals/
interests dichotomy to be aligned and connected. Guided by this chengyu, Post80s work-
ers are aware of local through global trends and opportunities, or shi (flow), and engage
in active and strategic use of them to achieve personal and collective goals.
It is worth noting that in Post80s’ positioning in the shi of the guanxi-based society
and the broader national strategy, many Post80s professionals follow the traditional
Chinese Zhong Yong (the golden mean) philosophy (or the Doctrine of the Mean) to
set their life and career goals and expectations in a volatile workplace. Zhong Yong
literally means “right in the middle” or “neither right nor left” and “normal” or “aver-
age,” respectively. Adhering to Zhong Yong was to stick to the middle way and never
go to extremes. Tao, a consultant, stated, “I don’t want to own a big company, be too
aggressive at work or be a big boss. I just want myself, my families and friends to be
happy and peaceful. That’s good enough for me.” Despite media portrayals of the
Post80s generation as aggressive, career-minded, and thirsty for success, they have
embodied traditional Zhong Yong philosophy in shun shi er wei—situating themselves
in the golden mean position of societal trends and social strata.
12 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

In short, as early career professionals in China, Post80s’ discourse of resilience was

found in their strategic response to adverse circumstances—shun shi er wei. This
chengyu highlights individual-environment relationships and offers guidelines for
Post80s to situate their work and careers in the discursive and material contexts of
their workplaces. Post80s participants are aware that dynamic stabilities of their
employment, promotions, pay raises, and developmental opportunities would rely on
how integrated they are in existing guanxi networks (Long et al., 2016). Additionally,
alignment with organizational needs, industry trends, broader societal imperatives,
and the zhong yong or golden mean positioning further guide Post80s in navigating the
beginning years of their careers and cultivating resilience in response to workplace
turbulence and uncertainties.

De Xin Ying Shou

Finally, the Post80s constructed resilience by adhering to de xin ying shou, aligning
work with what the heart wishes and what the hands accomplish. This chengyu guides
resilience constitution as it provides affirmation for work, generates positive social
identity, and builds strong generational work cultures. Following de xin ying shou,
workplace resilience can be achieved if one feels passion (hearts, enjoy the work pro-
cess) and have the potential (hands, utilize one’s skills) at work. The constitution of
resilience, guided by de xin ying shou, is an introspective heart-body process whereby
individuals experience meaningfulness.
De xin ying shou has two components important to generating resilience: what the
heart wishes, as in de (wish) xin (heart, passion); what the hands can accomplish, as in
ying (respond, match) shou (hand, competency). First, Post80s felt that work needs to
be one’s passion (de xin) to be sustainable. Market-driven labor policies and employ-
ment laws freed them from state-assigned and lifelong employment, thus allowing
them to choose meaningful work (Long et al., 2016). Xue, a small online business
owner and fashion designer, noted,

Our parents, they may live their life doing things they do not like. Many of them do not
know what they want to do and what they are capable of in their whole life. That’s pretty
sad. I think we are lucky in this respect. . . . If I don’t like it], I will definitely quit the job
even it is a job in the national government. . . . I can’t stand wasting my youth.

Similarly, Chao expressed his fear that one day he would lose his passion for work and
the only meaning of work for him would be to make ends meet,

I want to do what I like and I want to have a successful career. I am still young and I am
not afraid of failure. But I really fear that one day the meaning of work would only be
earning money. Some of my married colleagues told me, they did not want to work but
they looked at their children, and they knew they did not have a choice. They had to work
their heads off to get the money to support the family. I don’t want it happen to me. I do
not want to be a money-making machine.
Long et al. 13

Post80s’ craving for authenticity and work about which one feels passionate was
evident in Xue’s and Chao’s words. This is different from collectivist notions of the
self that aligned with communal interests (Liu, 2003) and is part of the Post80s genera-
tional work ethics and culture.
In addition, Post80s articulated that work needs to tap into their competency and
talents (ying shou). Yan expressed that the fit between job and talent made her work
meaningful and enhanced her resilience in the face of workplace challenges, “If I do
the job really well, I don’t have to worry about being laid off.” Compared to the
Protestant work ethics about working hard to be successful (Bernstein, 1997), the
Post80s prefer to work right, namely, engage in work that aligned passion and compe-
tency. Shi, emphasized the importance of working right rather than working for larger
pay checks:

China is developing very rapidly. . . . The society has become quite materialistic, people
are fickle-minded, and money talks. People are competing with each other and money has
almost become the only standard to evaluate one’s success at work. It really stresses
people out. . . . Some people are just happy on the day they receive their paycheck, but I
need to feel happy when I am at work.

In prioritizing the fit between work and their personal interests and enjoyment, Post80s
distanced their work meanings from past work ideologies as well as from more instru-
mental/materialistic work orientations, which they phrased as dominant in today’s
transitional Chinese society.
Participants said their feelings of achievement and personal worth were the most
important processes for enabling their workplace resilience. Dong, a news editor,
talked about how his passion for media helped him make it through frustrating times
at work,

Work can show and realize my worth. I live to work. I can play, eat, hang out with friends,
but that’s not the meaning of my life. My eternal goal is to realize my worth. I want
people to be talking about what I’ve done after I die. That is something that kept me
going.

Cheng, echoed Dong, also talked about being able to realize one’s worth as highly
motivating and resilience-generating as he tried to work his way up in a sports event
company. Cheng described how his love for sports pushed him to work hard,

When I am at work, I am like a dual-CPU computer. I want to let my colleagues, my boss

and my clients see that I am a very smart, hard-working individual, I am capable of many
things and I can contribute greatly to the team.

Selecting work that brought enjoyment and foregrounding feelings of achievement,

Post80s managed tensions between internal-external foci on work values in their
everyday constructions of meaningfulness and resilience (Buzzanell, 2010).
14 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

To sum up, de xin ying shou offers guidance to cultivate resilience inwardly for
Post80s professionals. Focusing on “heart” and “hands,” that is, the work one enjoys
doing and that utilize one’s potential, Post80s workers foreground productive emo-
tions and free themselves from dominant structures and external forces. The chengyu
of de xin ying shou sustains Post80s professionals’ resilience by balancing what they
are good at and what they want and hope for.

Discussion
The study contributes to the communication theory of resilience by exploring how
Chinese Post80s professionals enact and cultivate resilience by engaging with cultural,
sociolinguistic, and generational themes and linguistic choices. We display how
chengyu functions as a discursive resilience resource on which Chinese Post80s rely
as they struggle with their own and others’ unmet expectations about work, careers,
and familial and societal roles. Post80s’ use of chengyu provides decision premises,
affirms identity anchors, reinforces long-term community values, characterizes work
as meaningful, and reconstructs goals and prospectives (Buzzanell, 2010; Lucas &
Buzzanell, 2004; O’Connor & Raile, 2015).
Analysis of how participants constitute resilience through connections to gener-
ation-specific (re)interpretations of traditional meanings of chengyu showcases
how cultural narratives residing in collective memories can be re-enacted in two
interconnected ways—Post80s engage in reactive resilience labor7 to reframe
adversity and adapt to unfavorable conditions; Post80s engage in proactive resil-
ience labor to anticipate and cultivate resilience strategies. Post80s employed tradi-
tional Chinese philosophies encapsulated in chengyu (e.g., self-improvement, the
doctrine of mean, and harmonious dynamic) to identify potential workplace disrup-
tions (e.g., being laid off, denied promotions or raises). They engaged in cultivating
the mind-set, ability, supporting network, and everyday choice processes to prepare
for obstacles (e.g., they actively improve their skills, build guanxi networks/struc-
tures, and seek jobs that they enjoy doing). How these reactive-proactive processes
interrelate within the Chinese political-economic and cultural contexts using phi-
losophies to bridge individual-societal issues extends and nuances the communica-
tion theory of resilience.
Taking a cultural perspective, findings also extend communication resilience
research by unpacking the multifaceted nature of workplace resilience in the Chinese
context, which we label as longitudinal resilience connecting past-present-future,
relational resilience aligning self-other-collective, and introspective resilience inte-
grating passion-competency-workplace reality. Hou ji bo fa offered teachings of resil-
ience by emphasizing that effortful accumulation will pay off and that long-term
thinking to delay gratification can serve future goals, highlighting the temporal past-
present-future dimensions of resilience cultivation. Facing challenges such as satu-
rated labor markets, low incomes with job insecurities, and high costs of living,
Post80s invoked hou ji bo fa to focus their attention on self-improvement, bearing in
mind that positive and negative experiences lead to learning and growth, and
Long et al. 15

to position careers as long-term processes of accumulation and release. In terms of

relational aspects of resilience, shun shi er wei, when invoked, can be resilience-gen-
erating as it promotes a holistic worldview of self-other-society and its interconnected-
ness (i.e., individuals are more likely to engage in resilience processes when they are
integrated into larger webs of connections and in sync with current trends and societal
momentum). As exemplified by the individual-collective relationships suggested in
shun shi er wei, Post80s constituted resilience by situating themselves in the larger
community and broader trends of political-economic and social development of the
nation. Furthermore, the introspective perspective to cultivate resilience, as embedded
in de xin ying shou, highlights the importance of finding meaningfulness from work in
navigating emotions and relations, and in resisting and transforming workplace con-
straints. Post80s adhered to teachings of de xin ying shou to stay true to their gifts and
passion to resist negative influences. The chengyu teach the Post80s that resilience
must come from within, where the heart and hand/mind and body connect in a harmo-
nious state. Chengyu-invoked resilience coincides with and extends three tenets—self-
cultivation, multiplicity, and holism—of Chinese-centered perspectives that challenge
the hegemony of Euro-American–centric traditions (Kang et al., 2016).
The current study also offers important practical applications. First, the findings
suggest that language, such as idioms and cultural stories, carry values, strategies, and
guidelines that can foster collective and intergenerational resilience. Community and
organizational leaders can use these discursive resources for sensemaking and sense-
giving of disruptions, can find inspirations to overcome challenges, and can mobilize
community members to engage in collective actions for transformation. Educators can
cultivate resilience by engaging youth and early career professionals with resilience-
narrative constructions. Second, Post80s professionals’ anticipatory resilience build-
ing efforts revealed an aspect of traditional Chinese cultural understanding of resilience
—ju an si wei (居安思危), be prepared for danger in times of peace. Acknowledging
that individuals and broader contexts as always changing and influencing one another,
it is important to actively build resilience in times of comforts and peace through
maintaining realistic expectations, building guanxi networks, and saving for potential
hardships (Lucas & Buzzanell, 2012). Additionally, this study offers chengyu-inspired
strategies to enhance resilience for early-career professionals. Strategies include (a)
anticipating and reframing failures, struggles, and difficulties as learning and accumu-
lating processes to reach long-term goals; (b) considering the broader picture and find-
ing one’s own niche to stay adaptive to changing individual-environment dynamics;
(c) striving to find meaningful work while acknowledging that we as individuals are
constantly changing and growing and that workplace constraints can transform into
opportunities (and vice versa).
Our findings are limited by the fact that our participants live and work in Chinese
urban areas, and that they are privileged in terms of education, family’s social-eco-
nomic status, and Han majority ethnic group membership. Future research can expand
on participant groupings and resilience-generating language structures to focus
explicitly on the role of chengyu and other idiomatic structures. Themes of chengyu
not only constituted and encapsulated resilience as multifaceted processes but also,
16 International Journal of Business Communication 00(0)

we argue, form the cultural, generational, and linguistic bases for generating agile
careers. In conclusion, chengyu implicitly guided how Post80s professionals con-
struct responsive and anticipatory resilience processes situated in past-present-future,
self-other-collective, and passion-talent-reality dynamics. We call for more research
to understand and theorize resilience in non-Western settings. We encourage exami-
nation of how culturally generated narratives and contextually embedded interpreta-
tions help individuals and collectives enact resilience everyday.

Author Note
Patrice M. Buzzanell is also affiliated to University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

Notes
1. For example, the chengyu, po fu chen zhou originated from a historical war story in late Qin
dynasty where the general adopted a “no-retreat” strategy by breaking all cooking pans on
war boats and destroying the boats once the army crossed the river. This act cut off retreat
routes and pushed the army to fight for survival and win the battle. This chengyu is now
used when people expend all their efforts for final attempts toward their goals. Even if not
mentioned explicitly, po fu chen zhou serves as a philosophical guide for Chinese expres-
sions about final efforts.
2. Because Chinese Post80s generational members are highly diverse, we focus on a par-
ticular segment of the cohort, namely, professional women and men in urban China. Our
reasoning is that these members embody Chinese future leadership and carry the burdens
of national policies and neoliberalism.
3. Starting on January 1, 2016, China ended its 40-year-old one child policy.
4. The Chinese Post80s authors were able to ask questions and derive insights that outsiders
would be unable to do. However, they were distanced from these Post80s professionals
as U.S. scholars, enabling them to view situations more critically. Potential participants
were informed about the project’s goal and method as well as the voluntary and confiden-
tial nature of participation. On agreement, authors scheduled interviews at participants’
convenience.
5. This group of people, usually young, are referred to as “drifters in the city” as they do not
have permanent city residence (hukou) but prefer to stay in the big cities such as Beijing,
Shanhai, and Guangzhou for better job opportunities and lives.
6. Growing out of early ideas about mixing sounds and flavors (i.e., harmonious interplay
of sounds and mingling of various ingredients), harmony, or he, has a profound influ-
ence on contemporary Chinese society in shaping identity formation, interpersonal rela-
tionships, person-environment interactions, conflict negotiation, as well as leadership and
Long et al. 17

governance. Chinese classical texts suggest that harmony is an emergent order contingent
on the synergy of competing cues, and functions as dynamic balancing of seemingly polar
structures (e.g., self and others, inner and outer, movement and rest; C. Cheng, 2008).
7. Resilience labor was defined originally as dual-layer processes for sustaining organiza-
tional involvement and resilience through which disaster-relief workers generated open
and trusting networks, embodied humanitarian work ethics, and actively searched for spiri-
tuality (Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015).

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Author Biographies
Ziyu Long (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Communication Studies at Colorado State University. Her research interests include career,
entrepreneurship, mentoring, and gendered organizing in the globalized and digitalized
workplace.
Patrice M. Buzzanell (Ph.D., Purdue University) is Chair and Professor of the Department of
Communication at the University of South Florida. A Fellow of the International Communication
Association (ICA) and Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association, she
has served as President of ICA, the Council of Communication Associations, and the
Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender. Her research focuses on
career, work-life policy, resilience, gender, and engineering design in micro-macro contexts.
Kai Kuang (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Communication Studies at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests
include uncertainty in illness, risk communication, and health information seeking behaviors.

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