‘Just eat, drink and have fun’: childless couple in China retiring in their prime to enjoy life restart debate on ‘lying flat’ culture
- A well-to-do Shanghai couple’s decision to retire early after struggling to find work is the latest example of China’s ‘lying flat’ culture
- The couple in their 30s and 40s, have no children and two cats as their only dependants and say they can live on the interest from their savings
A couple in China who have retired in their prime to join the “lying flat” movement have renewed debate about the controversial culture, called tang ping in Chinese, where people abandon career ambitions and do the bare minimum to get by.
The 33-year-old woman, surnamed Chen, and her 43-year-old husband live in Shanghai, where Chen previously had a job as a game designer, and her husband worked in real estate.
They both lost their jobs last year and, after several months of unsuccessful job hunting, decided to leave the workforce and live off their 3 million yuan (US$43,000) in savings, The Paper reported.
The couple do not plan to have children and said their two pet cats are their only dependants.
The report said they don’t worry about their elderly parents as they receive government pensions and are covered by the public medical insurance scheme.
Chen and her husband own a flat in the city, have a car, and no debt. They receive around 10,000 yuan (US$1,455) in monthly income from the interest on their bank savings.
