When 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: "It is only through Tang Ping that people can become the measure of all things." Instead of following the usual standards of success,

Mark Siemons

Feature correspondent in Berlin.

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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,

in order to move into a cheap rental apartment in their smaller home towns.

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.

The overwhelming response has a history related to China's unique circumstances.

Up to now it was taken for granted there and it was not worth asking that everyone from kindergarten on started competing first for the best school, then for the best degree, the best university, in order to be able to dedicate themselves to the life that was generally expected with a secure job, a spouse who also has a permanent job, one or two children who will hopefully look after their old age, a condominium whose state-subsidized loans have to be paid off before retirement.

The psychological costs of this hamster wheel existence, for example for overworked school children or for employees who suffer from the "996" work culture (from nine to nine, for six days),

have always been high, but in recent years even their economic basis has become questionable.

Even degrees from respected universities no longer guarantee a job;

youth unemployment has reached a record twenty percent.

Condominiums in the metropolises have become so expensive that even well-paid employees can hardly afford them, and many find a second child unaffordable because of the high kindergarten and school fees.