Working Oneself to Death in China | Hacker News Reader

Working Oneself to Death in China

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44 pointslaowantong14 comments

Man, I remember when I lived in China and we would have the wifes of our engineers sitting out in the stairwell crying because the husbands worked so much and were never home. They certainly did work a lot. Some of them I could never beat at being early in the office and leaving late and I find myself quite good at that I would say.

IMHO (French, expat in Shanghai since 201708) in the Chinese middle class (and up) parents usually push their children very hard. Many start their day early, study before going to school, after it, and even during weekends. The school program is way more ambitious than most (maybe even all?) its occidental counterparts. All this is very competitive, even on extra-scholar activities (art, sport...).

Later, as adult, most are used to the idea that they must work hard, to the point of not even considering another approach.

RIP Zhang. A change in 996 would spare China's young talent, reduce brain drain, and maybe lure educated people from abroad to help Chinese companies expand into new markets. I hope something can change, stories like this are heartbreaking, though not unique.

It would also certainly be more efficient.

Just a general question, is it known why overwork and things like playing games for long hours has not just benign effects like fatigue, but actually leads to sudden death? There is the notion of karoshi in Japan which is death due to overwork. I also remember some news articles about a gamer in South Korea who collapsed and died after 4 days of continuous gameplay.

I only have anecdotal answers, but a few of the South Korean and Chinese video-game related deaths were caused by cardiac arrest and dehydration. I always assumed the unspoken part was that the gamers were using some mild stimulants (at least large doses of caffeine), combined with long bouts of inactivity.

This became a somewhat related issue in Japan a few years back, sometimes tied to karoshi incidents, and led to very strict regulation of stimulants, including how energy drinks and caffeine pills can be packaged / sold.

There are many other examples of cardiac arrest after several days of low activity and sleep deprivation though, so the medical reasoning may be simpler.

oh wow. I thought junk food might be involved with such long bouts. But I didn't correlate caffeine with this.

What I wondered originally was, whether sleep deprivation/loss of quality sleep for as little as one week could lead to death.

I'd assume that this is even more of a problem with focus enhancing drugs such as amphetamines, because they also will keep you awake and alert.

As employers see employees as cogs in the machine, when one burns out, swap and restart the engine. No humanity in the system

how does 996 happen ? Is it a company wide mandate or asked by supervisors or self inflicted?

Invisible rule. However lot Chinese actually believe in social Darwinism which make the situation worse

Modern China has a pretty short history and many in power today went through a more difficult time when they had to fight for their survival. 996 might seem totally reasonable to them. There are also many role models (i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lei_Feng) who sacrificed their health/life for work being praised in literatures.

Also, China is not a wealthy country, slipping into poverty is still a real possibility for many.

In pinduoduo's case there are internal memos specifying the hours.

Is China still considered a communist state?

If so does the government have any influence over this?

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