China’s “tofu dreg” projects are collapsing—homes, schools, and hospitals turned to dust

This is the reality. The very structures we trust – hospitals, schools, housing – are collapsing before our eyes. This is not an isolated accident, but a systemic crime. Whenever you try to film, someone will say, turn off the camera or you'll be arrested. That is not just a threat, it is the manifestation of a mechanism that protects wrongdoing. Behind the glossy facade of progress lies a terrifying secret. Too many buildings are What appears solid is often the product of organized hollowing out, skimming off essential materials, cutting corners, replacing real components with cheap, fragile substitutes. Houses, roads, and public works are turned into sophisticated traps, waiting for the moment to collapse. Here is a recording of workers skipping the bolts at the joints between steel columns and floors. They don't even drill holes for the steel columns, which should bear the weight of the upper floors, are merely placed there. A minor tremor could turn the building into a heap of shattered steel and concrete. Elsewhere, the technique of fake welding is revealed, replacing actual steel welds with glue, covered with a layer of nickel plating for appearance. What should have been molten welds ensuring structural integrity has become nothing more than adhesive and cosmetic coating. This philosophy of making it look good on the outside extends from hidden joints to even the most pitiful shelters for families. Today, I did some plumbing work and came away with a whole new perspective on construction. This outer stairwell wall was supposed to be built with 12-centimeter bricks, but on closer look, it wasn't brick at all. It was foam. Look, I pushed a screwdriver right through, the thin layer of plaster outside couldn't hide it, and just a strong kick would send the entire wall flying apart. The deception is not limited to private housing. In Chengdu, riverside guardrails supposedly built for public safety turned out to be filled with foam inside, transforming protective barriers into useless paper tubes. If the illusion of solidity wasn't frightening enough, the truth about these so-called sturdy materials is even worse. A man held up two red bricks that looked ordinary, smashed one, and revealed a core of lime fragments mixed with impurities. They're all like this. Even the cheapest red bricks are fakes. This is the reality homebuyers across the country are facing. Terrible, all like tofu. In another clip, a woman held a brick from a newly built project. Astonishment written on her face. As it crumbled in her hands, she exclaimed, these bricks are unbelievably bad, just like tofu. Look, the whole thing disintegrates, all like tofu. Unbelievable. The final layer of this systematic deception may be the most heartless of all. In one video, a man says, a fake fire extinguisher? Look, when you spray it, it's just powder. In another, a man tests a brand new extinguisher, a device meant to be the last line of defense between life and death. When he used it on a small fire, it only released a weak puff of dust, utterly useless, incapable of putting out the flames. Tragic consequences have already occurred. At a hospital in Guangzhou, the ceiling of a ward suddenly collapsed, sending concrete crashing down onto an elderly patient being treated for a brain hemorrhage. The hospital's response was as cold as the concrete itself, focusing only on the lifespan of the building while deliberately downplaying the fact that a helpless patient had been struck. In Chaozhou, the ceiling of the main lobby at the central hospital suddenly caved in, crushing several people waiting for medicine and injuring four. In Nanjing, the ceiling of the outpatient department at Gulu Hospital also once collapsed, injuring at least one person and sparking an online outcry. One netizen wrote, Even hospital projects which directly concern health are nothing but tofu-dreg construction. It really makes you think. If hospitals are unsafe, schools are no exception. In Fuzhou, the ceiling of a classroom suddenly fell, injuring one student. The school's reassurance that the child is fine was little more than a last-ditch excuse. But in China, the horror follows you all the way home. A family security camera captured the moment two little girls sitting on a sofa were suddenly engulfed in dust as the ceiling collapsed right above them. Fortunately, they were unharmed, but the footage is a haunting reminder that at any moment, even inside one's own home, disaster can come crashing down from above. A blogger posted a video of a wrecked bedroom with the stunned caption, Sleeping peacefully at home, why did the ceiling fall down? Nowhere is safe. From hospital beds to school desks to living room sofas, the threat lurks. Tofu-dreg projects have erased the most basic assumption, that the roof over your head will still be there in the morning. Fear seeps in a daily life, embedded in every brick and every layer of plaster. Across many Chinese cities, even the ground itself has become frighteningly unstable. An ordinary day at a used car market in Kunming suddenly turned into chaos, when a fence began to tilt and a large section of earth caved in, exposing a gaping construction pit below. A witness recalled, It was like being in a disaster movie. The ground just vanished into a deep hole. That same day in Hefei, a massive sinkhole swallowed part of Jinning Road, sending a white SUV plunging into the void. Rescuers had to use a crane to haul the vehicle out, saving four trapped occupants. But the most horrifying tragedy unfolded at a railway construction site in Shenzhen, where workers had long noticed soil and rocks falling into the tunnel. Until the ground suddenly exploded open, creating a chasm dozens of meters wide that swallowed an entire seven-lane road and a nearby building. Thirteen people, workers, engineers, and project managers vanished into the earth. This was no surprise, but a disaster foretold. These incidents recall a series of foundation collapses in housing projects across the country, from a Beijing resettlement block that fell after a single rainstorm, to a country garden project in Xinjiang where an entire building sank into a giant pit. The arteries of the nation, its highways and bridges, are also bleeding from the same disease. In the early morning hours in Guangdong, a section of the Meizhou Parallel Expressway suddenly collapsed, sending 23 vehicles plunging into the abyss and killing 52 people. The Chinese authorities called it a natural disaster, but the images from the scene told a different story. A story of shoddy construction and the crime of negligence. This is a system where infrastructure crumbles before it even has the chance to serve the public. A netizen posted a video of a newly built highway in Kuzhou, Zhejiang province, never yet open to traffic, that had already cracked and subsided. The road was a failure even before the first car had driven on it. Tellingly, the person who exposed the incident was later pressured by local authorities to delete the video. But the danger is not confined within China's borders. The model is exported. Through the Belt and Road projects, fragile construction follows Chinese equipment and engineers abroad. A station in Novi Sad, Serbia collapsed just a few years after completion, killing many. A bridge in Kenya fell before it was even inaugurated. In Thailand, a Chinese-built project was destroyed in an earthquake. And the first reaction of the company was not to aid victims or investigate, but to erase all promotional material and wipe evidence from social media. Behind these projects lies not just substandard concrete, but an entire apparatus of concealment. Censorship, erasure, cover-up. The deeper problem is this. These failures are not a string of isolated accidents, but the product of a system. One where profit and the protection of vested interests prevail over human life. When insiders dare to speak, they are threatened. When journalists investigate, they are beaten and stripped of their equipment. Victims who cry out for help are branded as troublemakers and silenced by force rather than heard. This is not just a fracture in an authoritarian system. It is a warning to any society that places profit above public safety. When materials are faked, when standards are ignored, when truth is crushed, people pay the price with their lives and their trust. The traces of disaster stretch from your own home to bridges and train stations abroad. And without fundamental change, this path will continue to spread pain far into the future. China is facing a devastating jobs crisis, with bankruptcies, layoffs, and unemployment spreading like wildfire through its biggest cities. Countless workers are trapped in record low wages, and more and more women are forced to take on food delivery work just to survive. Today, we invite you to dive deeper into this harsh reality. Ladies and gentlemen, what we are witnessing in China is nothing short of shocking. Millions are being pushed into poverty by collapsing wages and brutal working conditions. Some even say the economy has turned back the clock by 60 years, where countless jobs now pay just a few yuan an hour. How did this happen? Why has China's workforce been dragged so far backward, as if time itself has reversed? This isn't America. This isn't Africa. This is Longhua bus station in Shenzhen. On the cold ground lie exhausted workers, beaten down by despair. They work one day, then sit idle for three, because there are simply no jobs left. Their meals are the cheapest scraps of food. Their drinks only tap water. No mortgages, no car loans, no future. The sky is their roof, the pavement their bed. Homeless, hopeless, and with no choices left, they drift through each day in the wreckage of China's collapsing economy. I'm drained and surrounded by people who feel the same. They tell me to stay positive, but without money, our dreams die. Talking only makes the pain worse. I feel like a failure, stuck and helpless. And let me be clear, if this continues, the country has no future. We are sliding backwards. Ordinary people, the poor and the desperate, can barely survive. Brick and mortar shops are disappearing. Entrepreneurs are collapsing under debt. And even college graduates are forced to deliver takeout, often running into trouble just to scrape by. I might be the most unfortunate millionaire in China, and one of its most broken entrepreneurs. I've been building businesses my whole life, and yet here I am, a punchline. Just five years ago, I was worth tens of millions, hailed as a rising legend. Then overnight, everything collapsed. My capital chain broke, my company went bankrupt, and I was left drowning in 20 million yuan of debt. Across today's China, more and more people are suffocating under the same weight of despair. Unemployment is sweeping through major cities, leaving people jobless for months. Even industries that once offered hundreds of thousands in monthly pay are now shrinking. Those lucky enough to have work often carry the workload of three people, under unbearable pressure. Over 200 million Chinese are jobless, trapped in an endless recession. Countless women are forced into food delivery just to survive, because there are no other jobs left. Here in Shanghai, the pressure is crushing. Just this morning, I spoke with someone who's been unemployed for four months straight, still unable to land a job. Roles that once paid 80,000 to 100,000 yuan a month are now almost impossible to find, even for $20,000. Yesterday, I hailed a Didi ride. The driver from Hunan moved here just to make ends meet, but he didn't know the roads well, got constant complaints, and earned only a few thousand yuan a month, barely enough to cover rent, bills, and endless fines. He told me he'd head to Chengdu next month to try his luck. That's the kind of desperation people are living in now. I don't encourage anyone to leave China, because life abroad is tough too, but staying here feels unbearable. And when you lose your job, your income vanishes, but your debts don't. Defaults are everywhere. Mortgage defaults are exploding. Layoffs, salary cuts, collapsing housing prices. All of it is eroding the bank's stability. Shanghai's unemployment has become a trending topic, especially after the 2,000 layoffs from the Shanghai metro. Imagine that, the metro, once a stable giant, now cutting thousands. Then there's the Shanghai factory that shut its doors overnight, throwing 10,000 workers into the streets. Even Pegatron technology, once a symbol of strength, has gone dark in Shanghai. Meanwhile, commercial areas are emptying out, stores are shuttered, old buildings demolished. Beneath the city's glittering skyline lies a hollowed-out shell. Recently, a vlogger filming in Shanghai captured this collapse firsthand. He stumbled upon the North Bund, right in the heart of the city, and found it eerily deserted. His video shows massive malls, once bustling with life, now nearly silent. Gyms and yoga studios still kept their lights on, but only a handful of people wandered inside. Hair salons were shuttered. On the B1 floor, decorated with luxury finishes, corridors sat empty except for a few delivery riders. At 6 p.m., normally the evening rush, juice and drink shops had zero customers. North Bund covers around four square kilometers within Shanghai's inner ring, next to the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower. Yet all he saw were lifeless streets and rows of closed stores. The video also revealed entire areas around Baoding Road, Chengyang Road, and Huoshan Park marked for demolition. Old homes stood abandoned, residents long relocated. Delivery drivers and a few pedestrians moved quietly through empty streets, a haunting contrast to the once vibrant North Bund, only a short walk away. The vlogger even pointed out plans for new luxury villas in the area, but said bluntly, if these villas are built, only the ultra-rich or corporate giants will ever move in. For ordinary people, the city is closing its doors. Far away in Xinjiang, migrant workers live in harsh conditions. Their home is a 500 yuan room with no air conditioning, no water heater, just four walls. One worker said, ordinary people live like this. The rich eat meat, the poor drink soup. I wake up at 3.30 a.m. If I'm late, there's no work. Wages are 150, 140, sometimes only 70 yuan a day. No car, no savings, just survival. Most of these workers are in their 50s or 60s, carrying food from home. Sometimes lucky to get one free meal at a site. After paying rent and food, they're left with almost nothing. One side. At the end of the month, I have 100 yuan left. I'm not living. I'm just buying time, earning a little hope. But even in the cities, life isn't better. Many workers say those who stayed in their jobs are worse off than the ones who were laid off. Employees quit without even asking for severance because the workplace itself feels suffocating. One compared it to a courtroom. Every report feels like a trial. Every mistake like an execution. As business collapses, bosses lash out, finding excuses to fire staff, piling the workload of three people onto one, calling at midnight, stealing weekends and holidays. Even bathroom breaks are policed. Salaries are cut through endless assessments, draining workers dry. Companies don't care if you leave. There's always someone desperate enough to take your place for less. And for those who stay, the fear of the future looms. Paying into social security feels meaningless. We can't even afford today. How can we plan for retirement? If we leave a job after six months, those contributions are wasted. If we can't find work at 35, how can we at 40? Meanwhile, rising prices crush even the basics. The so-called poor man's three essentials, instant noodles, cola, pickled mustard, are slipping away. One worker complained, a Master Kong noodle bucket costs six yin now, the small one 4.5 or even five. I wanted the big one but I couldn't afford it. Instant noodles, something we relied on, are becoming a luxury. Master Kong, do you know how much you mean to ordinary people? Do you really need to squeeze us this hard? Leave something for the poor. Life's expenses are like an invisible net wrapping tighter every day. Electricity, water, parking, internet, TV, everything has a price. Add to that phone bills, property fees, medical costs, children's tuition, and heating bills up north. The moment you open your eyes, money is already flowing out. Earning is constipation, slow, painful. Spending is diarrhea. You can't hold it back. Your salary is like a period. Comes once a month, gone in a few days. So please stop talking about average wages. What's the point of that number? The rich don't share their income with us, so why should we share their average? For ordinary people, being debt-free is already a dream. Honestly, if air had a price, half of us wouldn't survive. Even dying costs money, cremation fees, funeral fees, cemetery plots, and then there's debt. One worker said, friends, you won't believe me. I borrowed 200,000 yuan and in just a year the interest almost caught up with the principal. That's the real horror of online loans. Earning 5,000 or 6,000 yuan a month. In two years, you can be completely ruined. The scariest part isn't even the high rates, it's the traps. Apps designed like webs, waiting for you to click. Late at night, scrolling your phone, you want a new one. Suddenly, an ad promises instant cash, no collateral. One tap and you've stepped into hell. At first, it feels harmless. Just 1,000 yuan repayment a month. Then comes the next urge, the next loan, another 20,000. Soon, 3,000 yuan repayment each month. It feels easy, addictive, until one day you realize you owe more than 100,000 yuan. No wonder so many young people now dream of going abroad. Ten years ago, they went overseas to make money, then came back to save and build. Today, they go for citizenship and never plan to return. They're tired of endless competition, afraid their children will repeat their suffering. This state of national debt and depression leaves no way out for us brothers. Society deteriorates when good people can't make money. Good people deteriorate when they aren't treated fairly. The imbalance begins when good people aren't rewarded and bad people aren't punished. When good people are treated unfairly, while the bad are tolerated and indulged excessively, the good lose confidence and the bad grow even more arrogant.