Category Culture

When 996 Became an Export Product

I keep thinking about the moment I read that Silicon Valley startups were posting “996 required” in job listings. It was August 2025. A 36kr article tracked how Chinese overtime culture had jumped the Pacific. Rilla, an AI startup, advertised…

China’s Banks Are Quietly Firing Themselves

I keep thinking about a number I read last week: over 70 banks in China have shut down their credit card centers since the start of 2025. Guangfa Bank’s Zhengzhou center went from three or four hundred people at its…

When the AI Agent Comes for Your Desk

There is a moment in the BBC’s recent feature on China’s AI agent boom that I can’t stop thinking about. A programmer named Mr. Peng, who works in IT at a manufacturing company in the Yangtze River Delta, says his…