{"id":1124401,"date":"2026-08-01T16:31:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1124401\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T16:31:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:31:28","slug":"the-upside-of-downsizing-chinese-youth-leave-the-rat-race-for-more-affordable-small-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1124401\/","title":{"rendered":"The upside of downsizing: Chinese youth leave the rat race for more affordable small towns"},"content":{"rendered":"

For five years, Alice Zheng, a former bank loan reviewer, followed the path expected of many young Chinese: securing a stable job and striving for middle-class comfort in the megacity Shenzhen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But after years of long hours, rigid corporate hierarchies and mounting stress left her physically and emotionally exhausted, she quit in 2021.<\/p>\n

Since then, the 36-year-old has lived in Yunnan province and the Yangtze river<\/a> city of Jiujiang, taking advantage of low costs in smaller cities and sluggish nationwide inflation to embrace a slower lifestyle. She relies on savings and occasional freelance work such as teaching English to rural children.Zheng belongs to what domestic media outlets call a self-driven wave of young Chinese people seeking slower, easier lives \u2013 an extension of the six-year-old \u201clying flat\u201d trend<\/a> associated with rejecting excessive job competition and consumerism.<\/p>\n

In Mengzi county of southwestern Yunnan province, known for its sunny weather and rural flea markets, young city-escapees such as Zheng live cheaply and quietly.<\/p>\n

An entire apartment building floor rents for 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per year (US$443 to US$740), astronomically lower than in Shenzhen, she said. And then there is the food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For five years, Alice Zheng, a former bank loan reviewer, followed the path expected of many young Chinese:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1124402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3090],"tags":[305968,3801,51,1395,31786,305969,1700,126238,175293,3749,152934,305970,305973,305974,305972,10741,305971,10743,16,15,141825,305975],"class_list":["post-1124401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alice-zheng","tag-beijing","tag-business","tag-china","tag-cpi","tag-david-wong","tag-economy","tag-guangdong","tag-hang-seng-university-of-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong","tag-huizhou","tag-jiujiang","tag-li-qi","tag-mengzi-county","tag-qiu-fa","tag-shanghai","tag-shantou","tag-shenzhen","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-yangtze-river","tag-yunnan-province"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117021211840498024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1124401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1124402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}