but the truth was people just conducted all their personal business at work instead, took three hour lunches and hour+ long coffee breaks and sat around chatting all day until one of the bosses walked past. It was no more productive (and probably slightly less) than other places I have worked with a 35 or 40 hours work week. It just meant people with kids never got to see them (it's common in China for young parents with city jobs to send their kids to the countryside to be raised by their retired grandparents because they're never going to get to see them anyway) and nobody could have any hobbies or interests outside of work.
It's all just performative dedication and busyness. It reminds of a story one Chinese coworker told me about how when she was in high school one of her classmates lived in an apartment block down the street where they could see each others bedroom windows and they used to stay up watching each other half the night to see who would turn their light off earliest because that meant they were less dedicated to studying for their exams. But actually neither of them were studying, they were both just staring out the window.
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