Burned out by COVID, Chinese professionals take up nomadic life: 'I wasted so much time'

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chu Fei thought she was doing everything right in life.

At 30, she lived in Beijing and worked at one of the world's largest tech firms. She had attended China's top school, Peking University, and gotten a master's degree at Stanford. She felt the same pressure as anyone else to work hard, buy a home and settle down.

But last year, the striving that came so instinctively suddenly lost its meaning. She was exhausted by 12-hour workdays and long commutes, then nightmarish pandemic lockdowns. None of it seemed worth the financial payoff, the promise of which dwindled as the economy worsened.

"It just felt like my plan wouldn't work anymore," she said.

Stuck at home, burned out, with murmurs of layoffs at her company growing, Chu began to realize that she didn't really like her work-driven life. So she started dreaming of a different one. In October, she quit her job, sold most of her possessions and moved to a provincial village some