Aussteiger: „Nackt kündigen“: Junge Chinesen entfliehen dem hohen Druck im Job

Dali, China - Huihui, a 31-year-old woman, is sitting on a rooftop patio of a café along the Erhai Lake in Dali, Southwest China. The blue sky and white clouds reflect off the lake, which sits at 2000 meters above sea level. Glistening mountains form the horizon. In July 2025, Huihui resigned from her well-paid job as a mathematics teacher at a private school in Chongqing, a city of millions in central China.

She often worked from 8 am to midnight, sometimes even on Saturdays. Huihui also reported that some of her colleagues had fired their students. After seven years in the profession, she decided to quit, saying, "I don't like this life; it feels like you see the end from the beginning." She chose to "nackt kündigen," which literally translates to "naked resignation," meaning quitting without a new job.

On social media, "nackt kündigen" has been glorified. On the Xiaohongshu platform, known internationally as Rednote, posts with the hashtag #luoci have been viewed 3.6 billion times. Now, Huihui lives with five like-minded individuals in a courtyard house in a small village near Dali, a city of 800,000 that attracts over 100 million tourists annually during the summer.

The pleasant highland climate attracts not only tourists but also many young Chinese who are leaving their jobs. But why are young Chinese abandoning their careers, despite increasing economic uncertainty? What is driving them to the provinces? And what are the implications for China? The Handelsblatt interviewed more than a dozen of these young outcasts.