Rock Our Dreams No Matter Where We Are
By Vinson Liu
     
With the trend of "Otaku", more and more generation Y kids are unwilling to leave the house and socialize, parents think it will have negative effects on their kids' social skills and future career. But the boys and girls of generation Y show us that they are still closely connected to the outside world and achieving their personal goals without having to be urged to leave their room.

"Otaku" is a Japanese term used to describe people who are interested in cartoons, anime and computer games and have a deeper understanding of these things. In China, it refers to people who stay home all day and only live a closed social life with limited social skills.

Here are two cases about Otakus earning money by playing games and managing an online business.
"The higher level weapons I get, the more money I can earn by selling them. In the best of my records, I earned more than CNY1000 on that day," said Francis Dai, a marketing student from University of Macau (UM).

"I can use these social media like QQ and WeChat which work with the Internet," said Dai. Aside from the classes and some other activities, he spent almost all his free time in his dorm room. Just like every other Otaku playing online games, watching TV and surfing online, he also said that he made money from playing online games.

"Someone with self-discipline could achieve a great success working at home, others with poor self-control ability might stay idle," Dai added.

Dai is not the only one who earns money while staying at home. Sandy Zhang, a 20 years old Finance and Business Economics major of UM, was inspired to open a shop on "Taobao", China's biggest online shopping website. She has been running her online crystal shop for about half a year on Taobao.

"You don't have to go out to see the world anymore. The Internet is powerful enough for you to know everything without going out. Besides, how far can you go by walking?" asked Zhang.

That's why online shopping is quite popular nowadays. Zhang smiled and proudly showed me the webpage of her online shop. She spent most of her time managing her little online business and hoping to become even more successful in the future.