“I Sweated So Much I Never Needed to Pee”: Life in China’s Relentless Gig Economy

“Often, there was sweat My back dripped within the first two hours of the shift and wouldn’t stop dripping until the next morning,” Hu Anyan wrote in the new English translation of his bestselling book. I deliver the parcel to Beijing. “I sweat so much I haven’t needed to pee once.” This passage was on my mind as I read his book in Tianjin during a hot, sweltering brainrot summer, when yet another unprecedented annual heatwave has forced nearly everyone inside—except for tireless couriers and delivery workers, whose services are in greater demand when the temperature soars.

Courtesy of Astra House

Hu’s writing first went viral in China five years ago, and he is now a well-known, established writer in the country. Although his other books viz living in low placesMore about his inner life I deliver the parcel to Beijing It is a focused, fresh, on-the-ground account of nearly a decade of work against the backdrop of the slow pace of China’s economic rise. In addition to working as a courier in Beijing, Hu also recounts his adventures in opening a small food shop, his time working as a bicycle store clerk, and his brief stint as a Taobao vendor. Hoo’s minimalist, hypnotic prose reveals the perverse beauty of tireless endurance in an increasingly uncertain economy.

When people outside of China read about it, it can be easy to associate the place with a foreign otherness, as if only Chinese people are capable of working around the clock in a mind-numbing way. Some of Hu’s previous work, such as running an ecommerce shop in the “Golden Age of Taobao” or the frantic energy of sorting parcels, speaks to the particularly Chinese context of a rapidly developing economy. Yet other elements, such as punitive finesse, the way profit pressure twists the work relationship, or the mundane angst of labor, will all be quite familiar to an American reader these days. Hur’s straightforward writing style reveals how toil in a logistics warehouse, whether in Luoheng or Emeryville, is the same: night shifts, a drink after work, petty arguments and factions, stuffing things into polypropylene bags.

Hu recently spoke with WIRED about his internationally acclaimed author, Gen-Z and Tangping (Flat Flat) culture and his views on work and freedom.

Does working as a courier give you the flexibility to earn money while being a writer?

Hu Anian: My writing and logistics did not go together. For example, when I was delivering packages in Beijing or picking parcels on the night shift in Guangdong, I wasn’t writing. I didn’t even read, and I had to decompress after work. In my book, I talk about the time I read James Joyce Ulysses and of Robert Musil The Man Without QualitiesThat was actually a special situation. At that time, our company was already in the final preparations to shut down operations, so every day, by one or two in the afternoon, we had already finished delivering all the products.