I believe that guaranteed success can only be achieved through hard work. The problem is that there are only 24 hours in a day. Therefore, all ambitious people have to sacrifice rest in favor of work or study.
China has been particularly successful in this regard, showing one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world over the past thirty years.
The flip side of this success is that many Chinese people do not live in the traditional "8 hours work, 8 hours rest, 8 hours sleep" mode, but in the "9-9-6" mode – a work schedule from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week.
All because competition for a place in the sun is very fierce in China. I talked about it in the video about cheating — competition for good places in universities is so strong that many applicants lose their minds even before taking the exams. If you don't get the highest score, you won't get into a good university, and you'll be doomed to a low-paying job for life.
That is, the 996 culture in China is a kind of continuation of the struggle for "survival" in the career race. Getting a job in top companies like Alibaba or Tencent and establishing yourself there means ensuring not only financial well-being but also social recognition. And if you don't work 12 hours a day, hundreds of thousands of competitors will.
Fans of the 996 work philosophy (mainly owners of large companies) insist on its positive impact. They argue that if it weren't for the overtime that became the norm in the early 2000s, there would be no Alibaba, no Huawei, no Xiaomi, and no economic power of China.
Among ordinary workers, there are far fewer such optimists, and in their eyes, 996 is not a recipe for success but a path to a hospital bed.
What is happening now in China is a typical conflict of a capitalist economy that the state should resolve. At the very least, forcing companies to pay generously for overtime. And remarkably, such laws exist in China, but in reality, they are not enforced.
The struggle for a place in the sun is too strong. If you start asserting your rights, you will be fired for formal reasons and replaced by someone else who is ready to "work their fingers to the bone." And so, hundreds of thousands of Chinese continue to live in the 996 mode, which is becoming the norm.