Why are some Chinese embracing 'lying flat'?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2022

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Lying flat” - or tang ping - is a trend among mainly young Chinese to opt out of the rat race and it represents the antithesis of a development model that has delivered extraordinary growth for the country over four decades. The sentiment has been widespread enough to warrant a public condemnation from the President. Xi Jinping.

Ed Butler hears from "Jeff," a computer developer from Hangzhou, but working in Beijing, who explains why he decided to give up on the Chinese dream in pursuit of a better quality of life. The BBC's China specialist Kerry Allen describes how the trend has developed online and how it has been accelerated by the forced slowdown during the pandemic. And Dr Lauren Johnston, a scholar of Chinese economics with a focus on the demographic shifts, says that both the privileged and the poorer 20 and 30-somethings feel exhausted by the Chinese ultra-competitive world of work and family pressures.

Producer: Ivana Davidovic

(Photo: Illustration of the lying flat movement. Credit: Sina Weibo)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Today, the Chinese citizens just saying no to the rat race.
0:09.9	I'm continuing to get rid of the negative energy in my life. I think 2022 will be an upgrade on 2021. But I still don't want to do anything. Continue to lie flat.
0:23.2	I enjoy and like this state.
0:26.0	They're calling it the lying flat movement.
0:29.7	A desire, it seems, just to give up on the Chinese dream.
0:31.4	But what's it all about?
0:35.7	The idea that you've got to very, very quickly get a house and start having kids,
0:37.6	a lot of these people who are in their 20s and 30s, they're thinking, gosh, when do I have the time? I'm already working from 9am to 9pm,
0:44.0	six days a week. And actually, they'd just rather take things at a much calmer rate and focus on
0:50.7	themselves rather than thinking about all the things that they're not doing.
0:54.2	China's great resignation. That's all to come in business daily from the BBC.
1:03.7	It's been a long time. I felt always along. I gave all my time to work, work, work,
1:14.4	and to mindless computer games when I'm home. I didn't use to hang out much. I didn't make any friends.
1:21.9	That's Jeff to use the English name that he's given us. He's been a bit sad lately.
1:29.0	Originally from Hangzhou,
1:36.0	he works at a high-paid job as an app developer in Beijing. Or at least, that's what he used to do.
1:50.6	The pandemic changed me a lot. I've never been a super motivated, money-oriented person. I was never obsessed with building a big company. And when I looked at some of my artist friends who didn't have
1:56.8	much money but lived very happily, they were much happier than me, who made a lot more
2:02.3	money than they did. They would go through a long list of interesting things they've done in
2:07.5	the year's time, whilst I was only able to say, I worked. Last year for Jeff, the strain of
2:14.8	watching others at his company getting laid off
2:17.7	and him having to take the strain in many cases
	...

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