Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 298 posts

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#191

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cossatot wrote: post #94

Sort of off topic but maybe not: I'm in Chengdu right now, my first trip to China since 2010. I had previously just been to Beijing among Chinese cities (lots of time camping in Xizang backcountry otherwise). Chengdu is so tranquil, orderly and clean compared to the Beijing of my memory. People don't yell or spit, traffic lights are obeyed and drivers slow for pedestrians, the city is quite nice. Is this just the dif…

Chengdu has a reputation as being a very laidback place with laidback people. Supposedly, it actually goes back to an irrigation project during the Qin state (before the Qin dynasty), which made life pretty easy in Sichuan. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan

But people in Kunming are also laid back, I get the feeling that southwest China is just that way.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#192

Post by amenod »

commandlinefan wrote: post #99
marsrover wrote: post #8

> Li said that initially he felt he couldn’t be too be picky: he had majored in English, not in one of the sought-after science or technology fields, and he had attended a low-ranked university. Many of his friends are unemployed. To me, this was the most interesting part of the article. It all sounds so familiar.

> sought-after science or technology fields Hell, I did major in one of the sought-after science or technology fields, and unpaid overtime is an infuriating, unavoidable fact of my life.

It is really not. It depends on the field, country and other factors, but it is very much avoidable. I know, I don't do overtime unless it's by my choice. And it is mostly about choosing an employer (if you have that privilege) with the appropriate company culture. What good is money if you can't spend it?

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#193

Post by virtuabhi »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #188
stcredzero wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's from Fujian. It was some kind of communist party community meeting.

Careful with generalizing. Southerners, and very especially Fujianese, are less patriotic than Chinese in other parts of China, especially the north.

Careful with generalizing. Esp. with southerners in one bin, and northerners in the other bin.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#194

Post by stcredzero »

virtuabhi wrote: post #193
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful with generalizing. Southerners, and very especially Fujianese, are less patriotic than Chinese in other parts of China, especially the north.

Careful with generalizing. Esp. with southerners in one bin, and northerners in the other bin.

Yeah. "The south" of China is quite a big and diverse place. My wife's dad is definitely patriotic!

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#195

Post by sho »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #188
stcredzero wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's from Fujian. It was some kind of communist party community meeting.

Careful with generalizing. Southerners, and very especially Fujianese, are less patriotic than Chinese in other parts of China, especially the north.

> Careful with generalizing

Well, indeed. In my experience it varies very widely and pretty much follows the pattern you see everywhere else - intelligent, curious people with good job options tend to be less concerned with patriotism; the less fortunate find solace in it.

The most loudly and irrationally patriotic chinese person I know is from guangzhou. Still wants to move away though of course, what's a little cognitive dissonance between friends?

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#196

Post by caio1982 »

One thing that drives me crazy (and to be honest has been impacting even my own family) is that companies learned to use gamification technics to engage young ones at work so they eventually don't think they are spending time at the office with overtimes, they are being psychologically rewarded constantly so it is not a social burden. Perhaps people in China just started to hit the upper limit of that and other countries will follow in some years once people get it does not pay off.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#197

Post by hkmurakami »

nimbius wrote: post #56

As an engine tech for a diesel truck service center, I can seriously sympathize with where young chinese people are coming from. excessive overtime, even paid , can turn you into a miserable zombie pretty fast. somewhat quickly after my apprenticeship I was gifted quite a bit of nonsense overtime from the old timers. rotor turns, oil changes, timing, valve clearance, etc... were all heaped up on me until I was spendi…

I saw late 30’s employees get addicted to overtime and plan their lives round expecting that fatter pay check.

Then financial crisis hit.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#198

Post by sho »

stcredzero wrote: post #121
avcdsuia wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectivism is hard coded in Chinese public education, kids are encouraged to hard work and make dedications to their native land in schools. The gov make idols to worship like Jiao Yulu(焦裕禄) way before this working overtime issue (and Jiao died from overwork and liver disease) and making tv shows Touching China，a mandatory learning section for middle school students. With this premise it's not odd to me that critic…

Here's what my Chinese wife says about all that. People go to a monthly meeting. You hear a "sermon" and sing some patriotic songs. Then people go on with their lives. Not everyone who goes to church necessarily really believes. Not everyone necessarily believed even in the 1800s. That said, the social/theocratic hegemony of western Christianity wasn't all good, but it also wasn't all bad. The same probably goes for…

That sounds like a meeting for party members, often people (or the families of people) angling for local government jobs. Of course there'll be some True Believers but the subtext is it's basically a networking event.

So yes, definitely like Church ;)

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#199

Post by edflsafoiewq »

emodendroket wrote: post #184
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abortion serves, in modern society, essentially the same function as abandonment.

Our law does not consider those things equivalent and I bet if you went around and asked many people would not consider that equivalent either.

Naturally a society which practices abortion but not abandonment would think so. But in both cases the function is essentially to provide a mechanism for infanticide to a society in which infanticide is prohibited (or rather, abhorred). There is a rationalization (for us, that the fetus isn't a child; for them, that the child is not actually killed, its life being turned over to the gods or to fate) but the rationalization is secondary to the fact that the act leaves the parent within, or on the border of, the normal workings of society instead of outside them altogether.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#200

Post by jeffreyrogers »

freehunter wrote: post #168
onlywei wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "millenials" as a classification is not used in China. Everyone gets classified instead as 80后，90后，00后， etc. (meaning born after 1980, born after 1990, born after 2000, etc.). Because of China's rapid economic growth, the difference in attitudes for someone born in the 80s versus someone born in the 90s is actually very pronounced.

I know nothing about China or how pronounced these differences are, but you see the same thing even in the "Millennial" generation everyone loves to talk about here in the US. You'll find a drastic difference between younger Millennials and older Millennials, to the point where Buzzfeed is writing articles comparing the two. No matter how much people want to pretend that "Millennial" is actually a real thing, it's no…

I think social scientists are now making a distinction between people who grew up with smartphone and without them. There are apparently quite large differences in behaviors and attitudes between these two groups of young people.
Post reply on HN