![]() All the unnecessary inflexibility,” he explains. “People didn’t like all of the forced office stuff, all of the overwhelming and annoying corporate culture, all of the overbearing micromanaging. Full-time workers were “jettisoned out into this world,” says Litchfield. This is how we conceive of digital nomadism,” says Litchfield.Īnd the pandemic has accelerated digital nomadism as a lifestyle choice among young Chinese around the world. Especially a person who has no permanent fixed home address. “It defines a digital nomad as someone who performs their occupation entirely over the internet while traveling. “Among the digital nomads we studied, I would say it was their Bible … it was the template ,” Litchfield says.įast forward, and Miriam Webster dictionary added “digital nomad” to its list of new terms late last year. Litchfield’s study of digital nomad culture around the world has been published in his recent book, titled Digital Nomads: In Search of Freedom, Community and Meaningful Work in the New Economy, co-written with fellow academic Rachael Woldoff.Īmong other sources, he cites Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Work Week as a major influence among nomads. “ Digital Nomad, written by David Manners and Tsugio Makimoto, was a book that talked about how technology would give power to humans to revisit an ancient choice which was whether to be settlers or nomads,” he tells Jing Daily. From livestreaming to promoting product reviews and dabbling in Web3-related marketing and other innovations, she and her business partner work on what they call the “creative side” of tech.Īccording to Robert Litchfield, a business professor at Washington and Jefferson College, whose area of research is creativity, innovation and the future of work, including digital remote work, the term digital nomad has been around since 1997. Running her own agency has enabled Zhou to work in multifaceted ways. “It has allowed me to work with different clients remotely,” she says. Unable to return to China, she started her own company. So, my schedule was flipped, and I barely saw any sunlight … I ended up quitting my job.” “I did that for a year, but I had to wake up at 9pm in Vancouver, and stay awake until 5am everyday. “I was the only one working remotely from another country,” she says. However, the time zone differences took a toll. The Shanghai-based company she was working for allowed her to continue working from abroad. Zhou made the lifestyle switch in 2021, when she was locked out of China mid-pandemic. Formerly based in Shanghai, Zhou runs her own digital media, marketing and advertising agency out of Vancouver, though she travels frequently across the US. Mo Zhou is a relative newcomer to the digital nomad lifestyle. “When I first got started, it was mostly men, but more women are catching up with it,” she says, adding that the digital nomads she encounters include writers, journalists, programmers and other creatives. Most of the Chinese digital nomads she knows are software engineers, according to Zhao. She then headed back to China to see family and tick off more places on her wishlist, including Ho Chi Minh City. Once the pandemic hit, Zhao, who had previously studied in Vancouver, returned to the city, where she mostly stayed until this spring. ![]() ![]() More importantly, Zhao was able to dodge some of China’s stringent lockdowns. She considers her resignation a blessing, as many of her peers lost their jobs during the pandemic. With an affordable cost of living and fast internet speed, Bali has become a hot destination for digital nomads. Over the next few years, Zhao managed a roster of clients while taking time off to travel and refresh between major projects, traveling in and out of cities like Hong Kong, tropical islands like Bali, as well as sleepy towns across rural China. In 2019, Zhao quit her job to go freelance. The phrase gathered over 93.2 million views and searches on Xiaohongshu late last year. And it’s not only Zhao - 76% percent of Chinese respondents aged under 23 surveyed for a recent employment report said they were willing to become digital nomads and not be tied down to any location.īuzzwords like “lying flat” have given way to new trends such as “let it rot,” which means living a slower lifestyle and doing the bare minimum to subsist rather than just submitting to the grind. ![]() She feared she was heading towards burnout. The “ 996 lifestyle ” is a term used to denote the harsh 9am to 9pm, six-day work week grind that has become a reality for many young Chinese working in white collar jobs, especially those in innovation and tech-related fields. “I worked 996 hours,” the Guangzhou native says. The software engineer received sought-after job offers from companies like ByteDance and was extremely busy working for an up-and-coming start-up in Beijing’s tech hub - yet, things didn’t feel right. It was 2018 when Tori Zhao found herself living the Chinese dream. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |