What makes capybaras so irresistibly popular amongst Chinese youth? From their zen-like calm to their unbothered personalities, these gentle rodents have become internet sensations.
Tune in as we dive into the capybara craze—their rising popularity in China, the carefree energy they represent, and how that resonates with today’s youth.
But are capybaras just a passing trend, or do they symbolise something deeper—like the dream of a carefree life in an increasingly competitive world? Join us as we unpack the cultural phenomenon, discuss how it reflects modern work-life stress, and reflect on 2024 while embracing “capybara energy” as we go into 2025.
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcast
[AI-generated transcript]
Sabrina: Heck is going on? Can we play this song as well?
Jianggan: Yes, of course. Do you
Sabrina: know what’s a
Jianggan: capybara? Roughly. Do you know what’s a capybara? I
Sabrina: don’t know what’s a
Jianggan: capybara. Because for the last three days, these two ladies have been, Especially s have been doing that nonstop in the office.
Jianggan: And to the point that that that you see this, this is everywhere.
Sabrina: This is a clip that we bought from Iwo. It was one un per clip that is 20 cents.
Sabrina: So what is a cbi?
Sabrina: Okay, so capybaras are a type of rodent who are native to South America.
Jianggan: Yeah.
Sabrina: And they are kind of, They are generally described as very, like, sociable as well as gentle animals, right? So there’s this video that we were watching about a capybara just standing on top of a crocodile and it was very calm.
Sabrina: And I immediately went to Google, like, do crocodiles eat capybaras? They do. . Yeah, they live harmoniously. If [00:01:00] they wanted, well, crocodile could eat a capybara.
Jianggan: You could play that video, right? Yeah,
Phyllis: yeah.
Jianggan: So capybara, like, standing on top of a crocodile and it just moves. Yes. And I think you can step on top of a capybara, right? I mean, they don’t care. Oh, yeah, yeah. We have videos
Phyllis: of it. We have videos of it.
Jianggan: So, like, I’ve seen different animals, like, step on top of a capybara.
Jianggan: Oh, like, oh,
Sabrina: like. And I thought, like, you meant, like, us. I was like, if I step on a capybara, it will die. It should. Pink, of course.
Jianggan: But for you, I think you should be fine.
Sabrina: But they’re quite big. So was Googling like, they can go to like 70 cm, they’re like 35 to 70 kg.
Phyllis: Have you seen the one in River Reverse Safari? Yes. So the only reason I went to River Safari was because I heard of this or the can can can being trend trended on TikTok. So then immediately the next day went to River Safari just to see the cap Barra.
Phyllis: Oh,
Jianggan: they, they are
Phyllis: actually, they, yeah, they do. They do. So what, what
Jianggan: they like, I mean. I’ve seen a real one but not in a zoo. They just lie there. What do they do?
Phyllis: Nothing. Lie there.
Jianggan: Lie there or just stand there?
Phyllis: Yeah, they just lie there. [00:02:00] They do nothing. They look a little bit high. Like, I don’t know if it’s disgusting. That’s why they’re so calm. They just do nothing. Very chill.
Sabrina: Yeah, but they like to lie in the sun.
Jianggan: Two weeks ago when I was in Shanghai and I was walking in the street randomly. Oh
Phyllis: yeah, you can add a photo. Jangan. So like Yeah,
Jianggan: just, just, just randomly. Someone, someone just took was riding a bicycle around and and, and there’s a basket on, on a bicycle, on a tricycle actually.
Jianggan: And there’s a capybara in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina: I did not know that you could buy like capybara as pets in China.
Jianggan: I’m not sure whether the guy does it commercially or just keeps it as a pet. I mean, he’s a super rich or whatever. But but I think in front of traffic light he stopped and suddenly he was surrounded by people taking pictures.
Phyllis: There is a lady on Xiaohongshu who owns a capybara. Like, this one, this one.
Sabrina: She
Phyllis: brings her capybara out for walks every day and she dresses her capybara
Sabrina: up.
Phyllis: Oh, the kebibara has a kebibara bag. She has all kebibara themed items.
Jianggan: So many people, [00:03:00] right? Yeah,
Phyllis: and her kebibara is just chill.
Jianggan: My experience was just so surreal, right? I was looking at this, and then I then I was walking around, and then half an hour later, when I crossed the street into another road, I saw a Llama.
Sabrina: Llama. Can you send me, like, the pictures that they gave us? Like, in a
Jianggan: bar, someone was feeding it, and it’s just I don’t know, it’s just You’re from Shanghai, I mean, like Does that come Do you see that often?
Phyllis: Jangan is talking to Elodie from behind the camera, by the way.
Sabrina: Is it common to have, like, llamas and capybaras as pets in Shanghai?
Sabrina: Very not common in China, especially in China where the space are bombarded.
Jianggan: I think some people have more space. This is where all the rich people send their kids to live, right?
Sabrina: They have I didn’t know you can keep so many interesting facts. Yeah, of course. So, recently, capybaras have been very, very, very popular in China, right? Which is why when you saw the guy that stopped on the street, everybody just wants to take pictures of capybaras.
Jianggan: so. He went to the market in Yiwu, right? I [00:04:00] mean, of course, we
Sabrina: bought
Jianggan: all this, but you see how many, like, different kinds of capybara, capybara flash toys, etc. I’ve been So there’s a lot
Sabrina: of capybara, like merchandise as well. Yeah,
Jianggan: even
Phyllis: capybara cafes now, like you can enter a cafe and you eat and then there are capybaras roaming around.
Phyllis: You can pet them.
Sabrina: Yeah. It’s like a cat cafe, but with cafe bars. But we feel there’s also a Lama cafe, there’s also a raccoon cafe. There’s a meal Cat cafe as well. Where?
Sabrina: Where?
Phyllis: In Korea. In Korea. In Korea, yeah. And that’s a pig cafe, like any animal that you are interested in, right?
Jianggan: Is that That the reason why I call people go to Korea because to see all this weird cafes, actually,
Sabrina: no, I don’t like this. Cafes. I think they
Sabrina: japan.
Phyllis: Yeah. To the me pick cafe, like my pick, I dunno, it’s, it’s a micro pick cafe. Okay. And I’m scared of animals, so I dunno how that’ll work. Very cute.
Sabrina: Yeah.
Sabrina: But so has been like very, very popular. [00:05:00] Right? And they’ve been trending all over, I would say social media.
Jianggan: It’s also interesting that I mean, even in serious, like, you know, space, they see more articles being written about Capybara.
Jianggan: A recent study published about, the historical context of Capybara and how that was somehow related to, I mean, how the Catholic, Catholic priests who went to South America treated Capybara because I mean, whatever.
Jianggan: So, so there’s lots of, lots of literature being produced about Capybara.
Sabrina: Really? Like people are studying like the history of Capybara.
Jianggan: Well, that’s the thing in China, right? In many countries, all this is cute, all this is cute. In China, like you see different subgroups of people who try to study that in different ways.
Jianggan: That’s actually in this. So
Sabrina: why do you think happy bar have become so popular in China?
Jianggan: I think we probably know it better, but but my sense is that of course it’s probably triggered by some celebrity, right? It’s beyond being cute. So so what people say is it’s an animal who doesn’t give a fuck about anything.
Sabrina: It’s very chill.
Jianggan: It’s very calm and it, it takes this attitude that [00:06:00] whatever goes, I’ll just be calm and I don’t give a them about anything. And and some actually wrote a description saying that, okay, it’s wrong and, and fat.
Jianggan: And it’s it knows a point into the skies and his eyes give a, a, a, a strong feel that, okay, I just can’t be bothered.
Sabrina: Don’t you think the eyes just have kind of like a dazed look,
Jianggan: like
Sabrina: maybe not can’t be bothered, but like, I don’t really know what’s going on and I don’t really bother to find out what’s going on.
Jianggan: Exactly, exactly.
Jianggan: And we put that in the context of of what people are going through, especially young people, right? This time when I was in Shanghai, I was talking to my, To my cousin, and she was explaining to me about how to work environment is like, how stressed out everyone was, especially this year, because.
Jianggan: Because here all this news about layoffs about people freezing sort of. A pay rises everywhere and and you get. You get tired, you get tired and you’re saying that. Okay. Why can’t I leave like, I don’t care.
Phyllis: Yeah, there [00:07:00] are a lot of compilations on cell phone show of capybara being their natural elements.
Phyllis: So I’m going to play a short video.
Sabrina: They just don’t care. They feel like all day.
Jianggan: So it says that what happens if I don’t, don’t want to go to work?
Phyllis: Yeah. The
Phyllis: nature of capybara is probably something quite relatable or rather not relatable to the people in China.
Phyllis: So it’s something that they,
Jianggan: yeah, it’s something that people look at it and say that, okay, I wish that I had a carefree
Phyllis: life. Yeah. Yeah.
Jianggan: Yeah.
Phyllis: I wish I could be a camp.
Phyllis: So recently I heard of this phrase in Chinese is like,
Phyllis: Ong, right? Which is like something that I don’t know, the older Chinese people used to say like, yeah, you
Jianggan: have, you have multiple skills. Skills and you’re good at each of them, right?
Phyllis: Yeah.
Jianggan: What’s that
Jianggan: related to Capybara though?
Phyllis: No, like, I think it just shows how Chinese people are so [00:08:00] competitive. And like, you know, we heard stories of how people taking the Gaokao, they are so stressed. So when I was on Xiaohongshu right, I also saw videos of like, how students in China are being so stressed out by studying.
Phyllis: Like they’re just collapsing when they’re studying. So this is
Phyllis: a short video.
Jianggan: Oh my god
Sabrina: that’s true. We asked one of our
Sabrina: colleagues as well, what she did when she was in school. Like, when she was young, did she watch a lot of TV shows? And she was like, oh no, I didn’t. And we were like, so what did you do as a kid? And she was like, I was studying. Yeah. I think
Elody: Then the first day, I went to see my teacher,
Elody: she gave me like 3, 000 test sheet, shijuan.
Phyllis: This was how old?
Elody: 10 years old. This is before I actually went into the school.
Jianggan: Did you actually complete the papers?
Elody: Yes.
Phyllis: Oh my god, there are a lot of empty test papers I had when I was a kid. Like, they would just give to me and I would just never touch it.
Phyllis: We bought the packets and we never, like, did it. Never touched
Jianggan: [00:09:00] it. I think back in my days when I was in school, it was not like that. It
Sabrina: was more chill.
Jianggan: It was,
Sabrina: it was, it
Jianggan: was not more chilled, but it was not that competitive. It’s, it’s, it’s
Jianggan: 90s, basically.
Jianggan: 90s when people had a sense that, okay the future will be brighter. No matter, no matter what you do. So, so they have this general sense that, okay, you can work hard, but also there are multiple pathways for you to be successful. But because, because you hear people around you, right? I mean, you don’t need to be academically like.
Jianggan: Sound to succeed because the market was growing. Yeah. So whatever you do, as long as you, you’re in the right place, you’ll succeed.
Sabrina: Has that mindset kind of shifted a bit. Years
Jianggan: I think, has shifted quite a lot. Back in my days, people sort of expect, like, I don’t know, 10%, 20 percent of people go to university. But I think sometime in I think early 2000s. Suddenly the government expanded the university intake. Suddenly that Like, I think 30, 40 percent of the, of the primary school pupils will eventually go to university.
Jianggan: So [00:10:00] that raises the expectations of people because previously, I mean, I had some classmates who said, okay, I’ll go to a vocational school and go and work at a chef. There’s no problem with that. But somehow I think as the generation, I mean, your parents would probably be born in the 1970s, right?
Jianggan: Late. Yeah. So basically they were the ones who, who saw the economy growing and they’re the ones who put lots of effort on their kids. Yeah. And I, because I don’t think the kids would make their own decisions to study hard or whatever it was, even it, the pressure from parents.
Jianggan: Parents and in two thousands, this is where the internet came about, I think same as people say that teenagers are feeling the pressure of. Of all this, like, you know, comparing with your peers and stuff. I think the parents probably do as well. I mean I remember when I was a kid, people said that it’s the only thing in Chinese New Year.
Jianggan: You say, okay,
Sabrina: look at this.
Jianggan: The rest of the year, you are calm.
Sabrina: But
Jianggan: now I think it’s probably all year long thing that keeps doing better. That keeps doing [00:11:00] well. And that pressure gets internalized.
Sabrina: So I guess that’s why, like, I guess not just students, right? Like generally the youth in China are quite pressured because there’s all this competition around them.
Sabrina: And then, of course, they compare themselves.
Jianggan: Yeah, I also think that is a thing of we have all this pressure, but whatever you do, you see the results. If things become better day by day, you probably don’t feel that kind of pressure. But if you have to work very hard. But things don’t necessarily improve by the same magnitude.
Elody: I know, because many students, they go to the top, and
Elody: then they come out to look for a work. Actually, the kind of they can get is very limited. The in the wage they can get is very limited. Sometimes in the world than the blue color water is. Oh
Jianggan: yeah, so basically the temple, there are more monks than there’s porridge.[00:12:00]
Phyllis: The pool is too small. Yeah, true. Yeah, because so many people are going to uni.
Jianggan: I think, of course, that goes deeper into the definition of what is success, right? So, so lots of people are thinking about, okay, send my kids to the best university. Voila. But the problem is that, okay, there’s limited intake.
Jianggan: So that drives competition. And, and now, I mean, over the last two years, you see people who have been to the best universities, but who don’t end up succeeding in life. I think that adds to another layer of, uh, pressure.
Sabrina: But I’ve realized this is something that people who are very smart from young kind of go through because I feel they’ve never experienced failure. So if you’re smart, like you put so much hard work in all the way, when you’re studying, right, you’re always doing well. You don’t know what it’s like to face a setback.
Sabrina: And so obviously when you come up to the working world, like things are different, you know, it’s not school, there’s no right answer. Sometimes your boss just doesn’t like you. So what you do is just wrong.
Jianggan: There’s no single pathway. How do you just put effort on this single area that you will succeed?
Sabrina: And so sometimes it’s like, I just feel [00:13:00] even a little bit of setback to them.
Sabrina: It’s a big blow to them because they themselves don’t know how to deal with it. They don’t know how to like, Oh, I’ve only succeeded. What do I do now?
Phyllis: And because they’re receiving praise from such a young age, right? And everyone is telling them like, oh, your results are so good. So you’re like doing very well, you’re going to be very successful in the future.
Phyllis: And then when they come out and then they reply stuff, you know, that’s actually not the reality that it gets a bit tough for them. Or maybe they come out and they realize that people who didn’t do as well in school are also more successful than them. And then they’ll be like, eh?
Jianggan: I think there’s a very, very big topic here because I do speak with lots of like would be entrepreneurs and and lots of people are sort of saying that, okay, how can, how come this guy’s more successful than I am?
Jianggan: And I mean, everything I do is better than that person. I think I’ve spent enough time with with some of the like veterans of, of internet in China and everybody would tell you that, okay, it’s luck tell wind. So you’re at the right place. And right time and you don’t give up. But the problem is very few people have the right luck to be at the right place [00:14:00] at the right time.
Jianggan: So, so, and I have a sense that many people don’t see that many people seem to believe that. Okay. It should be a result of pure hard work. And then that expectation gets misaligned
Sabrina: because they feel like no matter how much work they’re putting in, they’re still not seeing results. It’s always a big shock.
Jianggan: That’s exactly what the term nature is about. Right? Yeah. I’m not sure you guys read that book. Probably not.
Sabrina: Nature? Which book?
Jianggan: The the Agricultural evolution. No, by American Scholar who studied rice farming in the Indonesian island of Java. The initial, I mean, the term was coined because he said because of the competition, people have to put a lot of extra work for very minimal extra results.
Sabrina: When we talk about China, something we talk a lot about is how Jenny is, right? How competitive it is.
Sabrina: We just did an episode of automotive. So competitive also. And I think, but there’s sort of been another trend amongst Chinese youths where they kind of want to pull themselves out of this. [00:15:00]
Jianggan: And I also feel that the reason why is that precisely because you don’t see the end of it. I mean, if you work hard and you can foresee the future that’s better, fine.
Jianggan: I think most people are willing to put in the effort, but when you don’t see that path out, you’re looking for other things to console yourself, right?
Sabrina: Yeah, because you don’t know Whether or not the effort you put in will be worth it in the end if you don’t know the end goal.
Phyllis: You work harder, someone else will always work harder, and then where does it end?
Jianggan: And I think when you work harder and harder, you don’t see the results. So that’s the particular painful part.
Sabrina: But it’s been the trend of Chinese youth, so it’s, what’s the term, laying flat?
Jianggan: Yeah, Tanping. Tanping,
Phyllis: where they just Technically, they pull themselves out of the rat race, right? They don’t put themselves in this pressure in this competitive environment and they kind of just take a step back.
Phyllis: So I guess that’s why so many of them start liking capybaras. It’s like, that’s the dream. I want to be so Zed.
Jianggan: I think that was, that was the reason why it was so, so popular. And then [00:16:00] it’s the same reason why people go to temples and stuff, right? It’s just, it’s just to find that kind of calm.
Jianggan: Because every kid in China was probably raised as atheist in school. They tell you that there is no God or whatever, but I mean, everyone goes to the temple.
Phyllis: They tell you that in school?
Jianggan: Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
Phyllis: Really?
Jianggan: Of course
Jianggan: why did we come from Capybara to something like this?
Jianggan: Supposed
Sabrina: to be a very, very light. Yeah. I was like, this was supposed to be a very, very light podcast where we talked about Capybaras. But of course, I guess we have to talk about why Capybaras are so
Jianggan: Yeah. But here’s the thing, right? So, so behind us phenomenon,
Sabrina: Yes, there’s always like, there’d be a reason why.
Sabrina: It’s not just because it’s cute. There’s so many cute animals out there, right? But of course, the, I guess the calmness and the just, how capybaras like unbothered nature is what
Jianggan: I think also at the end of the day, it’s not something that you see every day. So that probably helps as well. So
Phyllis: Because yeah, because it’s not native to I like capybaras in like China’s zoo.
Phyllis: I
Jianggan: don’t [00:17:00] know what I’m trying to
Phyllis: say. Got some zooks I saw on Xiaolongshu. I think my New Year’s resolution will be to Eat much less Xiaolongshu?
Sabrina: No, to calm as a capybara. Why
Jianggan: not calm?
Sabrina: Do you not feel that
Sabrina: you are very calm? Before we were filming the podcast, we were talking about like spirit animals and how some people might see capybaras as their spirit animals because they’re like They are that calm and all.
Sabrina: What do you think your spirit anymore? Yeah. Next year my spirit animal will be,
Jianggan: and we talk about animals and you notice that that most of tech companies in China use animals as their mascots. So it’s something that people always associate to, and it’s something, I think, even in the early days of tech in China, that gives this attitude that, okay, I’m going to be different.
Jianggan: I’m not going to be cool. I think China has, amongst all the Chinese societies, I think China has probably, I mean, especially in the cities [00:18:00] has evolved into the most untraditional.
Sabrina: Traditional. And traditional in what sense?
Sabrina: In the
Jianggan: sense that many of the family values and stuff, I mean, when people go to Malaysia, for example, when they look at the societies there, they said, okay, wow, people are more traditional than us. When people go to Taiwan, they say, oh, wow, okay, people are more traditional than us.
Jianggan: Because it hasn’t gone through a cultural revolution. It hasn’t gone through all the upheavals of the last few years. It hasn’t gone through this period of. Stress,
Jianggan: but anyway, it’s it’s the end of the year. So do hope that, I mean, everyone, I mean, with all the stress that have accumulated over the year, I can have something to, to, to, to.
Sabrina: Bring
Phyllis: some capybara energy into 2025.
Phyllis: Capybara energy, guys. Be very zen. Be unbothered.
Phyllis: Some things you cannot control. Just, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen.
Jianggan: Actually, important point, right? So this is something that I was always been discussing with entrepreneurs. I mean, because there are people who are very anxious about many things, like from colleagues in the office.
Jianggan: So the key thing is that whatever you can control, I mean, you know what to do. Whatever you can’t control. I mean, there’s nothing you [00:19:00] can
Phyllis: do. Like a colleague of mine, they say,
Phyllis: It’s actually what she says. Sounds like
Jianggan: Elodie.
Phyllis: No, she was like, if my boss is not worried about it, then why should I worry about it?
Jianggan: I think there’s a certain truth in it, because at the end of the day, you can’t make everything perfect. You need to put your limited time and attention into things which matter the most, and you have to make this sustainable.
Jianggan: I think this year has been a busy year, but a good year for us, right? I mean, look at all of you.
Sabrina: So, thank you guys for tuning in to the last episode of the Impossible Podcast for this year. Thank you guys for your support throughout the whole year. We hope that you’ve enjoyed. Most all episodes, of course, we’ve changed the format a little.
Sabrina: So we went from audio to video and now we have more guests on our podcast. So thank you guys for your support in watching the impossible podcast. If you did like this episode, do like this video as well as subscribe to our YouTube channel for more. We will be back next year with even more content and with more professional podcast equipment.
Sabrina: Thank you.[00:20:00]
Sabrina: Okay, bye.
