China’s slacking off youth culture in the spotlight again after electrical retail giant punishes staff for watching movies at work

One of China’s most profitable private firms has found itself at the centre of a public debate about work-life balance after the details of penalties for staff who used entertainment apps during office hours were made public.

Ten staff members of electrical appliance retail giant Gome received a warning and demerit for watching movies, TV shows, and short videos at work, according to an internal document leaked earlier this week, triggering heated public debate about whether the punishment was fair.

Labelling such behaviour as “touching fish”, or mo yu, a term in China to describe laziness at work against the backdrop of an increasingly stressful work culture, the company said one of the penalised staff used 20 gigabytes on the Tencent Video app within four days, according to the internal memo that went viral on social media.

The company, ranked 12 on the government’s list of China’s top 500 private firms, released a statement late on Wednesday after news of the penalties became one of the most-searched topics on Weibo.

“Gome encourages the spirit of hard work and effective action. We are alarmed at behaviour such as mo yu and tang ping at work,” the company said.

Tang ping, or “lying flat”, is another Chinese term referring to the attitude of not overworking and being content with reality so as to cope with a modern culture of hard work, which many consider overwork, for seemingly little reward.

An influential work culture in China known as 996, working from 9am to 9pm six days a week, which is widely observed in Chinese tech companies and start-ups has aroused great controversy in the past few years and fuelled debate on work-life balance.