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A ‘Low-Desire Life'

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Fed up with work stress, Guo Jianlong quit a newspaper job in Beijing and moved to China's mountain southwest to "lie flat".

Guo joined a small but visible handful of Chinese urban professionals who are rattling the ruling Communist Party by rejecting gruelling careers for a "low-desire life." That is clashing with the party's message of success and consumerism as its celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Guo, 44, became a freelance writer in Dali, a town in Yunnan province known for its traditional architecture and picturesque scenery. He married a woman he met there.

"Work was okay, but I didn't like it much," Guo said. "What is wrong with doing your own thing, not just looking at the money?"

“Lying flat" is a "resistance movement" to a "cycle of horror" from high-pressure Chinese schools to jobs with seemingly endless work hours, novelist Liao Zenghu wrote in Caixin, the country's most prominent business magazine.

"In today's society, our every move is monitored and every action criticised," Liao wrote. "Is there any more rebellious act than to simply 'lie flat?'"

It isn't clear how many people have gone so far as to quit their jobs or move out of major cities. Judging by packed rush-hour subways in Beijing and Shanghai, most young Chinese slog away at the best jobs they can get.

Photo: SN

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Date: 16 July 2021
Credits Publisher: Spiritual News

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