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Concept
Tang ping
Summary
Tang ping () is a Chinese slang neologism that describes a personal rejection of societal pressures to overwork and over-achieve, such as in the 996 working hour system, which is often regarded as a rat race with ever diminishing returns. Tang ping means choosing to "lie down flat and get over the beatings" via a low-desire, more indifferent attitude towards life.
Tang ping can be considered as the Chinese equivalent of the American hippie counter-culture movement and the Japanese herbivore men phenomenon. Novelist Liao Zenghu described "lying flat" as a passive-aggressive resistance movement, and The New York Times called it part of a nascent Chinese counterculture. It has also been compared to the Great Resignation, a surge of resignations that began in the West at roughly the same time. The National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center, an institution affiliated to Education Ministry of China, listed the word as one of the 10 most popular memes for 2021 in the Chinese Internet. Chinese search engine Sogou also listed the word at the top of its list of most trending memes for 2021.
Unlike the hikikomori in Japan who are socially withdrawn, these young Chinese people who subscribe to "lying flat" are not necessarily socially isolated, but merely choose to lower their professional commitment and economic ambitions, simplify their goals, while still being fiscally productive for their own essential needs, and prioritize psychological health over economic materialism.
The phrase "quiet quitting", meaning doing only what one's job demands and nothing more, which became popular in the United States in 2022, was thought to be inspired by the tang ping movement. Another newer related phrase is bai lan (), which means "to actively embrace a deteriorating situation, rather than trying to turn it around".
This term first appeared around February 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, which is on the Chinese Internet.
Official source
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