After two years working in a Mercedes dealership's marketing department in Jinhua, a medium-sized city in Zhejiang province south of Shanghai, 22-year-old Haiyao (who didn't want to give her name) decided to resign. "Most of the employees were much older than me and nobody seemed particularly motivated," she said. But when it came to leaving her job, she didn't choose discretion.

She invited friends to a restaurant to celebrate the decision. On a large red banner, slogans were written in yellow Chinese characters: "The lovely young lady is no longer going to work; no need to feel down! Embrace the resignation; the future will be cooler." She herself ordered the banner in yellow on a red background, reminiscent of the country's propaganda posters, with their political slogans put up in the streets, or their calls to work harder, hung up on factory walls.

Haiyao immediately posted photos of the event on Xiaohongshu (literally "little red book"), the social media platform for young urbanites, often compared to Instagram. This was the platform where she found her inspiration. Hundreds of young people stage their resignations, playfully subverting the norms of companies that celebrate model employees. This is their way of rejecting the work culture of their parents' generation.

Former employees of large companies

Amidst slowing Chinese growth, stagnant wages, and an uncertain future, young individuals in China question the rationale behind overexerting themselves at work. While the country is far from experiencing a wave of mass resignations, the phenomenon has caught the attention of the Haidilao restaurant chain, which now offers the services of its employees to sing a "happy resignation" to diners, much like they do on birthdays.

Many of the individuals resigning and sharing their accounts on Xiaohongshu are former employees of major tech corporations, such as online retail giant Alibaba, telecoms leader Huawei and TikTok owner Bytedance. All of these companies are renowned for their intense work culture. In 2019, a movement had already surfaced within these large corporations to denounce "996" working hours: In the office from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week.

It was a way of questioning the sacrifices imposed by their leaders, at a time when the economy was showing signs of running out of steam and opportunities to get rich quickly were shrinking. The health crisis and an extensive campaign to regulate tech companies have exacerbated this feeling.

Frustrated with society

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