At ten o'clock in the evening, in the parking lot of a creative park in Shanghai's Yangpu District, private cars line up neatly with their trunks open, strung with colored lights and signs - instantly transformed into tiny shops. Hand-shaken lemon tea, freshly grilled burgers, vintage accessories, even live-mixed cocktails: crowds weave back and forth, and the buzz rivals any shopping mall.
Why the "car trunk," rather than the more efficient "online store" or the more presentable "brick-and-mortar shop"? The answer perhaps lies in the flexibility of "one square meter." In the first half of this year, layoffs and "cost-cutting for efficiency" became hot topics, and many people aged 35 to 45 felt unprecedented pressure - mortgages, car loans and children's tutoring fees pressing down like three mountains. For those born after 1995 and 2000, the predicament is of another kind: credentials are losing value, good jobs are scarce, and the traditional ladder upward has become hopelessly crowded. Rather than grinding away in an office cubicle until questioning one's whole life, many prefer to step out of the cubicle and seek a "micro-business" they can control.
The car trunk has become the perfect vehicle. Costs are minimal - one car is the entire fixed asset; goods can be hand-picked; whatever doesn't sell today can be sold somewhere else tomorrow. It can advance or retreat: a commuter vehicle by day, a money-making machine by night. This low-risk experiment matches young people's alternative understanding of "security" today - not finding an iron rice bowl, but having the ability to build yourself a bowl at any time. A young man born in the late 1990s selling hand-brewed coffee put it this way: "The 'office smell' in a workplace is suffocating. I'm tired now too, but this wind is free, and the money is visible. I don't care about getting rich overnight - as long as I can earn back the gas money tonight and still feel like setting up my stall tomorrow, it's worth it." What they want is not just an income, but a sense of command over their own lives. The moment the trunk opens, they shed all their workplace identity labels and return to the simplest of roles - an individual accountable only to themselves. That sense of ease is the scarcest thing today, and the greatest emotional value the trunk economy provides.
For the trunk economy to catch fire and spread like wildfire, the enthusiasm of stall owners and customers alone is not enough - without tolerance and guidance from city administrators, it could easily have been snuffed out in its infancy. In the past, the news often showed the cat-and-mouse game between urban-management officers and street vendors, a zero-sum contest. Now, Shanghai and some other cities are trying a gentler governance approach: designating specific zones, setting operating hours, requiring health certificates and proper sanitation. This shift in management is essentially an upgrade in how the "street-stall economy" is understood - no longer a byword for mess and disorder, but an important part of a city's lived-in vibrancy, and even a lever for boosting the night economy and flexible employment. Recently one locality issued detailed rules for trunk markets, requiring vendors to bring their own trash bins and restore the site to its original condition after closing - and the comment sections filled with applause. The public welcomes this lively form of commerce; what people resent is not the stalls themselves but the nuisance, pollution and food-safety problems they can bring. When the rules are clear and management is in place, young people's creativity and energy can be released within a safe and orderly framework. Behind this lies the modernization of urban governance - a micro-practice of reform that lets some people get "moving" and "experimenting" first, testing the market's temperature at minimal cost and realizing their own value. That tolerance is of far-reaching significance for activating a city's economic and cultural vitality.
That said, everything has two sides. However hot the trunk economy runs, its limitations and risks must be recognized. First, there is the "novelty curse": many customers come for the photo check-in and the novelty, and once the fad passes, how to retain regulars and build repeat purchases is a challenge every stall owner must face. After all, trunk space is limited, and so is the complexity of goods and services it can carry. Second, its inherent weaknesses are obvious: it is weather-dependent - no stall on windy or rainy days; the venue is unstable - a spot that is hot today may be off-limits tomorrow; and there is no brand effect, with severe homogenized competition. If your lemon tea takes off today, three more lemon-tea stalls may pop up beside you tomorrow, and once a price war starts, nobody makes money. So for the young people pouring in, this can be a good starting point - a platform for accumulating experience and seed capital - but probably not a broad road for life. How to convert the customers, experience and reputation accumulated at the trunk into a more stable business model - say, opening a distinctive little shop or building a personal brand - is the question that deserves more thought.
For society as a whole, the real value of the trunk economy may lie not in how much GDP it creates, but in the "sandbox" it offers young people for low-cost trial and error and social experimentation. Here, business logic is simplified, human connections are drawn closer, and the city's capillaries are activated. It works like a gentle lubricant, easing some of the pressure on the job market while soothing the weary hearts of urban dwellers. Watching those young faces busy in the soft glow, one feels genuine respect. They have chosen neither to lie flat nor to complain, but to use their own way to prop open a little space that belongs to them in this uncertain world. The explosion of Shanghai's trunk economy is an open public lesson in the wisdom of survival and the attitude of living. It tells us that as long as one's thinking doesn't slide, there are always more solutions than difficulties. Whether it is a returnee selling coffee out of a BMW or an ordinary young person setting up a stall with a Wuling Hongguang van, what they open is not just a trunk but a refusal to compromise with life. In this fast-changing era, perhaps we should all learn from these young people: fewer anxious questions, more practical action. Don't keep asking "what to do" - roll up your sleeves and go do something. After all, it is the smoke and fire of the everyday world that most soothes ordinary hearts.
