Work-Life Balance in Mainland China #Articles

Disclaimer: not Chinese, don’t work for a Chinese company, only 1 year here. So basically an expert!

996 is real… Shenzhen speed is real… Everyone in the office, every day! Remote work? Never heard of it and if your team works with other time zones, congrats  your “quick call” is at 10pm or on a Saturday. Public holidays? They get moved around like puzzle pieces, if you enjoy a holiday on a Friday, be ready to “pay it back” working the Sunday before or after.

Sound awful right? Well, maybe… I´ve seen both sides of the coin. People that really love what they do and take advantage of the working culture, and others that hate what they do and are counting the hours to go home, or “tang ping” aka decided to spend the day not doing anything. Funny thing, all of them take a power nap after lunch (that was shocking, in a good way haha).

But then you turn the corner and it’s a completely different movie, retirement age here has always been low, so you will see Grandmas (“nainai”, please be very careful with the tones on that one) dancing in the park at 5pm like it’s a K-pop rehearsal, Grandpas playing mahjong like it’s the Champions League final, or both of them just walking around in the park with their grandchildren, since the parents are stuck at the office working.

So… Mainland China (or Shenzhen) doesn’t really do “balance.” It does full throttle or full stop, depending who you ask.