The main thing is to keep your body and soul calm, whether in the office or in the furniture store: The global movement against the previous work culture started in China.
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Why bother when the future is so uncertain? Since the pandemic, countries like China, America and increasingly also Germany have expressed doubts about the previous work culture.
Als in April 2021, a 26-year-old Chinese factory worker with the username “Kind-hearted Traveller” revealed on the Internet forum “Tieba” that he had quit his job to cycle 2,000 kilometers from Sichuan to Tibet and since then lived without major expenses to lead, a movement got going that has meanwhile spread across all system boundaries to large parts of the globe. In China, the movement is named after the expression that the blogger himself gave to his action: Tang Ping, in English roughly: lie flat or lie down. “Tang Ping is my wise movement,” the Kind-hearted Traveler had written: “Only through Tang Ping can people become the measure of all things.” Instead of following the usual standards of success, he only supports himself with savings and odd jobs over water and otherwise enjoy the sun like Diogenes and reflect “on the Logos”.
No one could have predicted the magnitude of the reactions. In a very short time, Tang Ping has become one of the most prominent keywords circulating on the Chinese internet. It was as if a long-simmering rumble had suddenly found its unleashing magic word: why not just lie there rather than wear yourself down in ultimately pointless toil? Thousands online shared their own experiences: an employee who no longer wants to be involved in the fight for promotions because from now on she “prioritizes peace and tranquility of body and soul”; a couple who moved to Hainan Island from the big city of Hangzhou and opened a small cafe there; others who quit their well-paying jobs and rented out their expensive condos in the metropolis to move into cheap rentals in their smaller hometowns. A Tang Ping group formed on the Douban website and drafted a “seven-step guide to lying flat.” Accepting your own weaknesses instead of trying to improve yourself is part of it.