Work-related woes prompt food orgies and mass pillow fights
By Grace Ng 07 September 2009
By day, they are young white-collar workers toiling to meet harsh deadlines set by demanding bosses.
By night, they form packs and prowl supermarkets, swiping biscuits, defizzing soft drinks and crushing noodle packets.
These nie nie zu, or ‘pinch brigades’, have spread like wildfire across major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai over the past few months, leaving a trail of destruction behind them in their quest to ‘de-stress’.
They are among a growing number of young office workers who are adopting unorthodox stress relief fads to help them cope with the pressure they face at work.
Recently, hundreds of insomnia-stricken white-collar workers circulated on the Internet an addictive lullaby, which claims to not only help induce sleep in stressed listeners but also give them visions of their previous lives.
One 28-year-old professional surnamed Wu told the Chongqing Daily that after listening to the lullaby, she got her first sleep in months - and a dream that she had once lived as a Qing Dynasty princess married to a Manchurian nobleman.
Other white-collar workers turn to stress eating. On June 30, some 50 such workers in their 20s and 30s took part in a contest called ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ organised by netizens in south-western Chongqing municipality. They wolfed down biscuits larger than their faces while yelling out their grievances about work.
‘Because of the stress I face at work, I wake up earlier than a rooster and sleep later than a dog - making me zhu gou bu ru (lowlier than a pig or dog),’
a 30-year-old professional told local media as he gobbled up biscuits.
Other mass de-stressing activities include public pillow fights (above) and an immensely popular online game where young adults wake up in the middle of the night to ‘steal vegetables’ from virtual gardens.
Such unusual pursuits reflect the collective craving of hundreds of millions of young office workers for outlets that can deflect some of the stress they face at work, brought about by factors ranging from unreasonable superiors to fears of retrenchment amid the downturn.
As many as 12 million people in China will be unable to find jobs this year, even if the country achieves its 8 per cent growth target, state media reported on Aug 23. Many job-seekers are fresh graduates applying for white-collar jobs.
China’s Internet forums, blogs and ‘tweets’ are filled with complaints from the young who say they hate their jobs but dare not quit.
Last month, in a health survey of 20,000 Chinese white-collar workers conducted by Microsoft’s web portal, MSN, almost 80 per cent said they had been depressed over the past six months.
Six per cent felt their stress levels had peaked and they needed urgent help. Of those who said they had been under great stress, managers aged between 26 and 30 working in private or state companies made up the largest segment.
Many stressed-out workers have even resorted to suicide. In July, a young graduate who was a factory worker at contract cellphone maker Foxconn threw himself off a building, leaving a note in which he blamed overwork for his predicament after three months without a day off.
In the same week, another Foxconn worker, 25-year-old Sun Danyong, killed himself after he was suspected of stealing an iPhone prototype from the company.
Most white-collar workers, especially those born in the 1980s, ‘have not been taught properly how to cope with stress, especially in the workplace’, said Dr. Lu Bo, a Beijing psychiatrist.
Many graduates from smaller cities aspire to work in top cities such as Beijing, but when they land jobs there, they find the pace too fast to handle.
Local media has also reported on poor working conditions, such as low wages (often just a few hundred yuan a month), scant annual leave and no medical benefits. ‘In many offices in Beijing, workers aren’t even given a lunch break,’ noted Dr. Lu.
Dr. Liu Zhao of Capital Chinese Medicine University noted that young office workers might have developed bizarre, even destructive forms of behaviour after being influenced by the Internet, where news of unusual activities is widely publicised. ‘To counteract this, the media needs to highlight healthy ways to de-stress,’ he said.
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Stress relief, China-style
Work-related woes prompt food orgies and mass pillow fights
By Grace Ng
07 September 2009
By day, they are young white-collar workers toiling to meet harsh deadlines set by demanding bosses.
By night, they form packs and prowl supermarkets, swiping biscuits, defizzing soft drinks and crushing noodle packets.
These nie nie zu, or ‘pinch brigades’, have spread like wildfire across major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai over the past few months, leaving a trail of destruction behind them in their quest to ‘de-stress’.
They are among a growing number of young office workers who are adopting unorthodox stress relief fads to help them cope with the pressure they face at work.
Recently, hundreds of insomnia-stricken white-collar workers circulated on the Internet an addictive lullaby, which claims to not only help induce sleep in stressed listeners but also give them visions of their previous lives.
One 28-year-old professional surnamed Wu told the Chongqing Daily that after listening to the lullaby, she got her first sleep in months - and a dream that she had once lived as a Qing Dynasty princess married to a Manchurian nobleman.
Other white-collar workers turn to stress eating. On June 30, some 50 such workers in their 20s and 30s took part in a contest called ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ organised by netizens in south-western Chongqing municipality. They wolfed down biscuits larger than their faces while yelling out their grievances about work.
‘Because of the stress I face at work, I wake up earlier than a rooster and sleep later than a dog - making me zhu gou bu ru (lowlier than a pig or dog),’
a 30-year-old professional told local media as he gobbled up biscuits.
Other mass de-stressing activities include public pillow fights (above) and an immensely popular online game where young adults wake up in the middle of the night to ‘steal vegetables’ from virtual gardens.
Such unusual pursuits reflect the collective craving of hundreds of millions of young office workers for outlets that can deflect some of the stress they face at work, brought about by factors ranging from unreasonable superiors to fears of retrenchment amid the downturn.
As many as 12 million people in China will be unable to find jobs this year, even if the country achieves its 8 per cent growth target, state media reported on Aug 23. Many job-seekers are fresh graduates applying for white-collar jobs.
China’s Internet forums, blogs and ‘tweets’ are filled with complaints from the young who say they hate their jobs but dare not quit.
Last month, in a health survey of 20,000 Chinese white-collar workers conducted by Microsoft’s web portal, MSN, almost 80 per cent said they had been depressed over the past six months.
Six per cent felt their stress levels had peaked and they needed urgent help. Of those who said they had been under great stress, managers aged between 26 and 30 working in private or state companies made up the largest segment.
Many stressed-out workers have even resorted to suicide. In July, a young graduate who was a factory worker at contract cellphone maker Foxconn threw himself off a building, leaving a note in which he blamed overwork for his predicament after three months without a day off.
In the same week, another Foxconn worker, 25-year-old Sun Danyong, killed himself after he was suspected of stealing an iPhone prototype from the company.
Most white-collar workers, especially those born in the 1980s, ‘have not been taught properly how to cope with stress, especially in the workplace’, said Dr. Lu Bo, a Beijing psychiatrist.
Many graduates from smaller cities aspire to work in top cities such as Beijing, but when they land jobs there, they find the pace too fast to handle.
Local media has also reported on poor working conditions, such as low wages (often just a few hundred yuan a month), scant annual leave and no medical benefits. ‘In many offices in Beijing, workers aren’t even given a lunch break,’ noted Dr. Lu.
Dr. Liu Zhao of Capital Chinese Medicine University noted that young office workers might have developed bizarre, even destructive forms of behaviour after being influenced by the Internet, where news of unusual activities is widely publicised. ‘To counteract this, the media needs to highlight healthy ways to de-stress,’ he said.
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