A factory worker quit his job, biked 2,100 kilometers to Tibet, and started a movement.
In April 2021, a former factory worker named Luo Huazhong posted a photograph of himself lying in bed, curtains drawn, on the Chinese internet forum Baidu Tieba. The title of his post was "Lying Flat is Justice."1 Luo had quit his factory job in Sichuan Province in 2016 because the work left him feeling empty. He then cycled 2,100 kilometers from Sichuan to Tibet, returned to his hometown of Jiande in Zhejiang Province, and settled into a life of reading philosophy, doing occasional odd jobs, eating two meals a day, and spending roughly sixty dollars a month from savings.
Tangping (躺平) translates literally as "lying flat." Luo wrote that since no trend of thought on this land had ever truly exalted human subjectivity, he would create one for himself, citing the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who lived in a barrel on the street.2 The post went viral on Weibo and Douban, inspiring memes, discussion groups, and a catchphrase: "a chive lying flat is difficult to reap."3
Chinese state media moved quickly to reject the idea. In May 2021, the state news agency Xinhua published an editorial asserting that lying flat was shameful. Censors removed Luo's original post. A Douban discussion group of nearly 10,000 followers was shut down. Online platforms were ordered to "strictly restrict" content promoting tangping, and selling tangping-branded merchandise was forbidden.4
The movement emerged against the backdrop of the 996 work culture, the expectation in many Chinese technology companies that employees work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. The New York Times described tangping as part of a nascent Chinese counterculture. It has been compared to the Great Resignation in the West, which accelerated at roughly the same time.5 China's National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center listed tangping as one of the ten most popular neologisms of 2021.6