Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

Chinese college students have been grumbling online or to the media lately, protesting against the accusation that they are too slothful to wash their own clothes themselves.

During an online interview at the press center of this year's two sessions on March 9, Liu Liangyi, deputy director of the market supervision department of the State Post Bureau, blurted that some college students nowadays are inclined to send packages of dirty laundry to their parents, thus contributing to the burgeoning express delivery service in campus.

Liu's words, intended to promote the convenience of express delivery in life, were singled out by some to launch an attack on China's college students, most of whom are born after 1990, and even upon the education system itself.

Most college students felt wronged. They argued their life skills were never that poor. Plus, given the popularity of launderettes in the modern campus, there's simply no need for them to mail unwashed clothes and smelly socks back home.

I believe the situation is not so bad that dirty clothes play a big role in driving the express delivery business. Nonetheless, the contribution of some spoiled and lazy students does indeed exist.

Some express delivery companies reportedly claim that the beginning of the first semester for freshmen is the best season for dirty clothes delivery.

I recall that in my days when I was a college student, although I used to wash clothes myself, I packaged heavy items like my down coat home each holiday so that my parents would pay for dry cleaning. Dry cleaning was costly for a student like me without an income.

During this swirl of criticizing student laziness, media investigation found only a tiny number of students using the fast, convenient and relatively inexpensive express delivery service to send their clothes home. Why is the public so easily convinced that Chinese youth are too spoiled and shiftless to wash their own clothes? 

The reasons are simple yet complicated.

Discontent with college education has been not new in recent years in China. Educationalists and social critics keep pointing fingers at a system that allegedly only cultivates "studying machines." Comparison between Chinese students and their counterparts in Western countries like the US, Japan and Australia have been often made to underline the lack of independence and life skills among Chinese kids and students.

There are also criticisms about the degradation of Chinese youth generation by generation. Mostly being the only child in one family and growing up in relatively affluent material conditions, those born after 1990 are often stereotyped as a conceited, decadent and depraved generation.

There is an abnormal prevailing phenomenon that Chinese society tends to tar a group with its own failings, such as in the early 2000s when we pronounced judgment on the second generation of the rich and those born after 1980. The post-80s generation was once labeled self-centered and irresponsible, but now they have proved they could be a reliable and solid backbone of society.   

Given the negative perception of the post-90s generation, the pubic is willing to believe any accusation against them, no matter how ridiculous.

Lots of young students vented their anger in online forums after being denounced as indolent. It's not merely a matter of washing clothes, but a wake-up call that we must treat this group objectively, without prejudice.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. yujincui@globaltimes.com.cn