Work: Why Do Some Chinese No Longer Attach Great Importance To Work?

“I keep getting rid of negative energy in my life. Next year will be better than this one, but I still feel like I don’t want to do anything. I’m going to keep lazy. I’m enjoying it.”

When Jeff (not his real name) left Hangzhou to work for a well-paid app developer in Beijing several years ago, he took all his time and life as many young Chinese professionals.

And he spent his little free time outside, playing what he describes as “reckless” computer games.

He did not improve his social life in his new town and eventually gave up trying.

But when the epidemic broke out in the country, life to which he was accustomed came to an abrupt halt, and like many other workers, Covid made him re-evaluate his priorities in life.

While chatting with his artist friends in his hometown, he was struck by how even though they didn’t have money in abundance, they always found exciting things and plans to talk about when Jeff had nothing but work.

When his company started laying off employees due to the pandemic, he had to work 60 to 70 hours a week and finally got out and took some time to travel.

While staying in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Epiphany, he saw groups of older people gather in a nearby bar to relax, chat and watch football together for hours at a time. He thought about their lives and said to himself: Why not be like them too, relax and enjoy the idle state?

Indeed, he did just that when he returned home and quit his job and is one of many Chinese nationals who have either retired or scaled back their commitment to work in the past two years.

In Chinese, the idea of ​​”lazy,” or tang ping, means taking a break from hard work.

The Tang Ping movement took off in the past year, with many feeling under increasing pressure to work harder and outperform their peers.

Tired of Hard Work

This trend is caused by the declining labor market in China, which means that young people are now pressured to work much longer hours and are exhausted.

“People are feeling apathy now, they have to deal with coronavirus, and they are feeling tired,” says Kerry Allen, BBC China media analyst. Rather than maintaining momentum through hard work.”

While the Covid pandemic may subside, Tang Ping is not. On Chinese social media, users post saying they don’t want to go back to the way things were before the pandemic and now have the confidence to live a slower life.

China’s former one-child policy meant that these young professionals grew up without brothers or sisters, and this has added to the anxiety of many of them.

Traditional values ​​are still critical in China (such as buying a home and having children). Yet, many young people in their twenties and thirties worry that they will never be able to achieve these things.

Even children, arguing about naming a few, will also have to take care of their elderly parents, and for many people, real estate prices are becoming increasingly unattainable.

In 2019, Jack Ma, the entrepreneur and founder of the Alibaba Group, was criticized for endorsing the so-called 996 work culture in China — where people work from 9:00 in the morning until 9:00 in the evening, six days a week.

Last year, the country’s Supreme Court and Ministry of Labor ruled the practice illegal. However, if Job 996 is still required for success at a professional level, it is perhaps not surprising that some young people choose to opt out altogether.

Demographic trends mean that social pressures on young people are likely to increase.

By 2035, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projects that 20 percent of China’s population will be over 65, putting more pressure on young people to support older generations.

Jeff, who did not want to be identified, describes his decision to give up his job and life in Beijing as a “quiet protest against current rules, a rejection of what he calls people to learn and work harder.”

This may sound almost like an act of sabotage in China.

These sentiments, expressed by Jeff, were so widespread that Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a clear warning in an article in a Communist Party newspaper.

“It is necessary to prevent the consolidation of social stratification, to facilitate the channels of upward flow, to create opportunities for more people to become rich, to form a development environment in which all participate, and to avoid ‘inward-looking’ and ‘indolence,’” he wrote.

In China, such intergenerational differences are not rare. In both the United States and Europe, economists describe it as a “big resignation,” as millions of workers retire, quit, or refuse to take on tasks they consider useless or unrewarding.

Could laziness be the Chinese version of these trends?

Lauren Johnston, a research assistant at the China Institute, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, says different drivers for this trend.

First, there are young rural immigrants in Beijing or Shanghai who are now realizing “how late they are in terms of being able to make enough money to buy a house or compete with city-dwellers who have grown up speaking English and elegantly dressed.”

Johnston explains that some in this group may now consider returning to their home towns and taking low-paying jobs to be with their families.

On the other hand, children born to more affluent and successful parents are not “as hungry as the superior children from poor families.”

Johnson believes that the so-called “tiger” culture in China is an additional barrier, as parents feel they are under tremendous pressure to help their children achieve this, which is that school alone is not enough. Still, they have to pay for additional mathematics, Chinese, English, and music lessons or prepare for competitive entrance exams.

It remains to be seen how all this ends when China is facing challenging economic conditions, slowing growth, mounting debt, and the country’s real estate sector may face a complete collapse.

As for Jeff, after pressure from his parents, he finally got another job, but he said it was a less demanding job. He earns half of what he previously made but says he is so flexible that he plans to stay in business for the foreseeable future.

“I will be able to continue doing all the hobbies that I have discovered during the period of relaxation and laziness, skiing and rock climbing, and I now have time to do what I love; I am delighted now.”