As always, China’s National Day Golden Week, which came to a close yesterday (October 7th) gave Chinese internet giants a good opportunity to look into Chinese people’s habits and preferences in how they spend their leisure times.
While we are accustomed to crowded tourist spots and congested traffic on highways during the holiday, an increasing number of people opt to enjoy some indoorsy “alone time”. Over 21 million WeChat users took less than 100 steps on any single day from September 30 to October 6, according to a report released by the social media platform. Of the total, 56% are post-80 or post-90 users.
The finding is fairly unsurprising given the travel rush. A total of 726 million Chinese tourists traveled in the country during the holiday, up 9.43% year-on-year, according to data from China Tourism Academy. The railway traveler numbers jump to a level on par with the peak figures for the Spring Festival rush, local media reported.
In addition, the result also comes in line with the rise of otaku culture in China, especially among China’s younger generations. Originated in Japan, the word ‘otaku’ (that means something similar to the word ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’) has become a modern colloquialism as a part of the 2D culture, which is becoming increasingly mainstream in China.
China’s southern Guangdong Province, eastern Jiangsu, Shandong, Jiangsu Zhejiang Province and northeastern Liaoning Province topped the five spots that recorded most shut-in WeChat users, according to the report.
The ranking reasonably coincides with that for online food delivery orders. Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province, with the most recorded most indoorsy WeChat users, witnessed the most online food orders, followed by Fujian and Sichuan Province.
Reading is obviously the most popular past time. WeChat Read users spend a combined 19.87 million hours during the holiday. Historical novel Those Ming Dynasty Stuff, Hugo-award winning science fiction The Three-body Problem, and martial art novel by Gu Long were the most popular books during the holiday.
While some are enjoying their vacations, others kept themselves busy with works. Users of WeChat Work, the enterprise-grade office management platform by Tencent, are most active in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. Retailing, manufacturing and IT industry spend the most time at work during the period.