Raising bricks takes seed among China’s stressed young adults as bizarre hobby

Young adults in China looking for a cheaper, low-maintenance alternative to having children or pets have found an answer: raising bricks.

Bricks may not be as cuddly as cats or as life-affirming as human offspring, but they also cost next to nothing. “No cats, no dating, I started raising a brick,” wrote one brick parent on social media. A hashtag related to the trend has attracted more than 5m views on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

Chinese commentators have linked the trend to young people looking for low-effort routes to finding meaning in life; One brick “parent” even told Chinese media the hobby created “a sense of accomplishment no less than completing a long-term project”. Raising “brick babies” is easier than caring for house plants, involving spraying them with water a few times a day then waiting for moss spores already present in the atmosphere to attach themselves and grow. One Chinese media article described the bricks as being “practically immortal”. “If you forget to water them, the moss goes dormant. If you remember to water them again, the greenery returns.”

Young people in China are increasingly shunning the traditional expectations of society, such as having children and working long hours in strenuous jobs, assuming they can find one in the first place. Nearly one in five 16- to 24-year-olds, excluding students, are unemployed, according to official statistics. Some estimates put the unemployment rate much higher. The trend has become so popular that Chinese media have started to warn about the health risks; Xuedong Li, a retired professor of moss from Beijing’s Capital Normal University, urged people to keep their bricks in an enclosed environment, because cultivating moss could lead to the spread of mould, with some “brick parents” reportedly complaining of itchy eyes and runny noses.