Video: The Chinese Influencer Who Made a Career of Lying Flat

"We followed Tom Jia, a popular influencer who left his demanding job in Shenzhen to travel across China in search of the country's most affordable and least stressful places to live. This is Tom Jia. He's a 28-year-old lifestyle influencer who calls himself a Tangping, or lying flat: It's a fast-growing lifestyle, rejecting social pressures to overwork and pursue material success. In China, young people face intense pressure to work grueling hours, buy a house and get married."

"Tom's role: making videos to teach them how and where to live an affordable, stress-free life. Before, Tom became a lying flat influencer with 400,000 followers, he was one of many young people feeling burned out by the big city grind. Tom was living in Shenzhen, one of the most expensive cities in China. In 2023, Tom quit his job, bought an R.V. and set out to scout China's best cities for lying flat."

"He has turned this firsthand research into a video series and a spreadsheet that now includes over 100 cities. In this video, he's introducing the fourth edition of this lying flat city guide. Each place Tom visits, he talks to residents, tours apartments and films the different neighborhoods. After that, he rates each city using a dozen different criteria, like public transit, affordability and how much nature you have access to."

Tom Jia, a 28-year-old lifestyle influencer, quit his Shenzhen job in 2023, bought an R.V., and traveled across China to scout affordable, low-stress places to live. He compiled firsthand research into a video series and a spreadsheet covering over 100 cities and released a fourth edition of a lying flat city guide. Tom rates each city using a dozen criteria—public transit, affordability, nature access—while talking to residents, touring apartments and filming neighborhoods. Lying flat, or Tangping, rejects pressures to overwork, buy property and marry, with the 2021 housing market collapse and economic downturn boosting the movement as smaller cities sat with empty housing.

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