Work-Life Archives - Page 5 of 5

Pressed to Drink

A media survey of 2,005 people, cited by the Legal Daily in January 2022, found that 92.3 percent had been pressed to drink, and 74 percent said they accepted when they could not get out of it.

Drinking rhymes make the link between alcohol and feeling: 感情深，一口闷, “if the feeling is deep, drink it in one,” and 只要感情铁，哪怕胃出血, “as long as the friendship is iron, never mind a bleeding stomach.” In a 2021 appeal in Shanghai, two men who had urged a woman to drink before her death were held liable for 12 and 8 percent of the compensation.

Too Many Banquets

In February 2012, the China Youth Daily reported a poll of 1,704 people by its social research center. More than 56 percent complained that they attended banquets too often. Business dinners were the least welcome kind, named by 65.4 percent. Of those who felt anxious about banquets, 84.5 percent named drinking as a reason.

Only 2.4 percent flatly refused to attend. A bank clerk in Tianjin explained why he went. The banquets, he said, “can help develop and maintain relationships with clients and colleagues as well.”

The Vocabulary of Endurance

吃苦耐劳 To eat bitterness and endure toil. To bear a hard life and stand up to heavy work.

任劳任怨 To take on toil and take on complaints. The Handian dictionary explains: to work without shirking hardship and without fearing the complaints of others. The phrase goes back to Han dynasty texts.

996.ICU

In March 2019, Chinese programmers started a project on GitHub called 996.ICU. Its slogan was gongzuo 996, shengbing ICU: “Work 996, get sick, end up in the ICU.” 996 means working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

Within weeks, the page had almost 200,000 stars. Its list of companies said to demand such hours had grown to 123.

Huawei’s Mattresses

At Huawei, the mattress became a symbol. A company text from 2006, titled Heaven Rewards Diligence, describes the origin of Huawei’s chuangdian wenhua, mattress culture. In the words of the business site Jiemian, the mattress stands for “a culture of continuous striving.” Ren Zhengfei once said: “Huawei has no money. If people do not strive, it will collapse. We cannot pay anything for those who do not strive.”

In 2008, Ren played the symbol down. “The mattress is not a culture. Culture can be passed on. A mattress is only a tool for an afternoon nap.”

Lying Flat

On April 17, 2021, a post titled Lying Flat Is Justice appeared on the forum Baidu Tieba, written by a user called “the good-hearted traveler.” Tangping, lying flat, came to mean withdrawing from fierce competition and no longer striving. It made the lists of the top words of 2021.

In May 2021, Southern Daily answered with a commentary titled “Lying Flat Is Shameful. Where Is the Justice in It?” Xinhua reprinted it.

The Spring Festival Rush

Every year, in about forty days around the Spring Festival, hundreds of millions of people cross the country. The rush is called chunyun. It grows out of the custom of reuniting with family for the festival. Even people who work far from home try to be back before New Year’s Eve.

The word first appeared in People’s Daily and Xinhua reports in 1980. For the 2026 rush, 9.4 billion cross-region trips were expected, a new record.

Toil Without Merit

没有功劳也有苦劳 Even without merit, there is hard toil.

吃得苦中苦，方为人上人 Only by eating the bitterest of bitterness can one rise above others.

In 1984, Hu Yaobang extended the first saying when he praised an old Red Army veteran: “If not merit, then toil. If not toil, then fatigue.”

Working 996 as a Blessing

On April 12, 2019, Jack Ma told an internal Alibaba event that being able to work “996,” from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, was “a huge blessing.” For companies like Alibaba, he said, it was a fubao (福报), a reward earned by good deeds.

Ma later wrote on Weibo that no company should or could force employees to work 996. In August 2021, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Supreme People’s Court published model labor cases against unlawful overtime rules.

Iron Man Wang Jinxi

In March 1960, the oil driller Wang Jinxi led his team from Yumen to the new Daqing oilfield. They moved and installed the drilling rig by pulling with their hands and carrying on their shoulders. During a blowout, Wang jumped into the mud pit and stirred the mud with his body. He became known as the “Iron Man.”

At a rally on April 29, 1960, he shouted: “Better to live twenty years less, but we must take this great oilfield, whatever it costs.”