We re Starving Lunar New Year Is Brutal The Harsh Truth About Chinese New Year 2026

Now you finally understand. Is this really what a year is supposed to look like? You won. You succeeded. And yet here we are, trapped in a bad situation. Society is in a bad situation. These are hard times. How do we get out of this? We can't see the future. We don't even have money for the new year. We're forced to gamble on luck. No one knows when this will end. Hope feels gone. Come, look at this. Firecracker exploration. Do you believe it? I won't let you walk away from this. I'll even go to the hospital if I have to. When a pig is dying, it fights the hardest. Do you believe that? He ran away. But Shunzi didn't. Shunzi was beaten by the party. Over the years, he did too many wrong things. He couldn't sleep at night. He was terrified of firecrackers because the sound would wake the ghosts of his past. And he even dared to let that old pig speak to him. In the end, Shunzi changed his name. I never imagined this hot spring business would collapse like this. It's not about the price. Look at the streets. Empty. Hardly anyone shopping. Where did everyone go? There's no one. We're crying our way into the new year. I honestly feel like this winter has no soul. Like summer swallowed the spring festival. The new year is coming. Do you see anything? From south to north, silence. Fireworks go off. But there are no crowds. Police patrol the streets. The villagers of Wangguangda are gathering. It's already the 27th day of the lunar year. And the streets are still cold. I've been doing this for nearly 20 years. This is the worst year I've ever seen. I can't sell anything. It's the year of the goat. So what? I've been selling fruit for nine years. I started in June's that first year. The market has never, ever been this empty. According to regulations, the entire Luancheng district is banned from setting off fireworks. Go look at the countryside on July 20th. I'm exhausted. It's almost New Year's Eve. Even the mountains feel like they're collapsing. Even the red waterfall across the road looks lifeless. This is a barbecue stall. Yes, a barbecue stall. In the past, even if the city had one bad year, it would bounce back. I kept telling myself to just hold on until New Year's Eve. I lowered everything to the minimum, just to survive. Be careful. Look across the road. Both sides are nearly shut down. Some shops aren't even operating at 10% capacity. In rural Hubei province, a strange scene has appeared. So many houses. So many closed doors. But no people. The countryside feels abandoned. There is no New Year's atmosphere at all. Three times worse than usual? Yes, at least three times worse. Is it because of no business? Or because of the pandemic? The pandemic hurt, but even without it, things wouldn't be good. The auto market isn't this dead. Even the shops that closed aren't doing well. People said high-speed rail seats were empty this year. I didn't believe it until I saw it. Completely empty. Some say I'm selling cheap goods. It's not about price. It's about people. I don't even need to cut prices. I put it here. You can take it. Really. I'm warning the whole city. Be careful. Don't let desperation push you too far. It's already past the 27th. I walk the streets myself. This village is empty. Friends in the city say the city is empty too. So where did everyone go? It's almost the Chinese New Year. Out of ten villagers, eight have already left. I tell the young girls, don't rush back blindly. In our village, there are only two days off during Spring Festival. Listen carefully. If someone tells you their position is national level, stay far away. Don't get dragged into trouble. The year hasn't even started and people are already collapsing. Many can't even cover basic expenses. A few hundred yuan left. Credit cards maxed out. Car loans due. Mortgages about to default. My followers message me every day. From last year until now, even the meat for children coming home for New Year's Eve was bought on credit cards. Everyone knows jobs are hard to find. Business is dead. No income. Widespread unemployment. Except for a small group, most ordinary people are drowning in debt. They can skip meals, but they cannot miss one loan payment. And a few days ago, a friend called me crying. I've been living off credit cards for years. I lost 200,000 to 300,000 yuan in my startup. I kept rotating debt. Then, last month, he lost his salary. After paying debts, he had only a few hundred yuan left. Alone at home. No sleep all night. It's almost New Year. He doesn't even dare to go home. The economy is falling fast. The Spring Festival is approaching. But from rural towns to big cities, the country feels drained. Families are anxious. Many are surviving day to day. Some are struggling just to eat. It's a brutal year. The market is in terrible shape. The New Year shopping atmosphere is gone. Videos everywhere show open shop doors with barely any customers. High-speed trains are empty. No more crowded stations. No more long lines at bus terminals. People say depression and unemployment are everywhere. This reality looks nothing like what state television claims. There is no celebration. No excitement. Because people simply have no money. And countless companies have shut down. This road doesn't even have a stray dog. People say this year has been too harsh. The mountains are quiet. The streets are quiet. No crowds anywhere. Every store feels cold and dim. There is no sense of Spring Festival. I can already see it. 2026 will be even harder. Everyone keeps asking what 2026 will look like. I said before, 2025 was only the beginning. The theme of 2026? Three words. Reveal the truth. Everything will show its true form. At the start of 2026, masks will fall. Look at that black rock. At year's end, so many still haven't found opportunity. It's almost New Year's Eve, and this place is silent. This year slipped by in vain. It was not a good year. Money feels harder to earn than ever. Worse than last year. How many excuses can people keep making? Too lazy to act. No motivation. No drive. What can we do? I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know what you're eating or drinking at home. You don't come out to shop. Do you want small vendors like me to collapse? Customers are disappearing. Airports still have gates open, but the shops are empty. This year, if you're not rich, you struggle to survive. Good afternoon, everyone. It's New Year again. I packed my car. Look at it. I'm alone. Completely empty. I've never seen a year like this. Streets are quiet. No shoppers. Brick-and-mortar stores feel abandoned. The economy feels chaotic. The fruit market has crashed. Tea, plums, sugar oranges, apples, pears. Rock-bottom prices. A box of plums for 15 yuan. Tea for barely over 10. Prices are nowhere near past years. And even then, sales are half of what they used to be. Give us a discount, they say. We need the cash to go home. We're rushing home. In 1983, a banquet cost 500 yuan. In 2025, a banquet cost 8 billion yuan. 8 billion. How does that even happen? No one has ever seen a banquet worth 8 billion yuan. Imagine if that money had gone to poor children or elderly people. In recent years, Jiale Village has grown emptier. Fewer people on the streets. The county town used to be packed. Every street full. Not anymore. As the Chinese New Year draws near, the red lanterns are going up. But the optimism that once filled China's biggest cities is nowhere to be found. The economy continues its downward slide. Job opportunities are shrinking. And by 2026, even Beijing, a city of nearly 23 million people, feels strangely hollow. Commercial streets that used to pulse with traffic and neon now echo with footsteps. Storefront lights are dim. Restaurants that once required reservations now sit half-empty. The capital still looks grand on the surface. But underneath, something has shifted. Many residents say the pressure of living has become unbearable. Prices have not softened. But incomes have. Some people quietly admit they no longer have the security of a guaranteed meal. In the past, trash bins behind restaurants were filled with leftover food. Those struggling could eat from what others discarded and even save a little cash. It was humiliating, perhaps, but it worked. And now even that fragile safety net is disappearing. People have become frugal. They order less, waste less, and dine out far less often. Fewer customers mean fewer restaurants operating at full scale. Fewer restaurants mean fewer trash bins. And inside those bins, almost nothing remains. One recycler in Beijing asked bluntly, is it really shameful to pick up scrap in Beijing? Over half a month, he collected bottles, cans, cardboard, bits of metal. He stacked them carefully against his window until the pile nearly blocked the light. Finally, he pushed a cart through the winter streets to sell everything at once, curious how much his effort would bring. It was not about pride anymore. It was about survival. Some friends worry that letting children witness this kind of hardship might leave scars, planting seeds of inferiority that last a lifetime. But Bo Chu sees it differently. He believes children should understand early that life is not easy and survival is not automatic. A poor child takes charge early, he says. Parents cannot walk beside their children forever. Better they learn now how to endure, how to adapt, how to keep going when circumstances turn harsh. That day, Bo Chu sorted iron and wooden boards together, 42 jin in total. He counted 120 Coca-Cola cans at 0.1 yuan each. He weighed full loads and empty loads, recalculating again and again to make sure he was not cheated. After all the effort, a cart stacked to the brim sold for just 37 yuan. Another time, after 12 days of collecting trash across Beijing, he earned 32.5 yuan from a single sale. He once said you could not get rich picking up scrap in the capital. He did not expect it to be this hard. Still, he smiled and joked, I'm rich. Humor is cheaper than despair. In a big city, he says, you must compete relentlessly. He once considered taking a treasure hunt job, but it required four days of unpaid training. Four days without income was a luxury he could not afford. While searching through discarded items, he found a worn blanket with a hole. To others, it was trash. To him, it was warmth. His mother rides a small electric scooter, and in freezing weather, that blanket could shield her from the wind, saving dozens of yuan. These small victories matter. He even admitted at one point he could not afford to go to the hospital. Whenever yuan is calculated, illness becomes a financial risk. Another blogger shared her own reality in early 2026. She and her husband stood on the edge of unemployment after sudden news of layoffs at his company. There was no warning, no gradual transition, just the possibility of income disappearing overnight. Yet life does not pause for anxiety. Bills still come. Meals must still be cooked. They move forward step by step, even when the path ahead felt uncertain. Her clothing shop had not opened for three consecutive days. Friday, Saturday, and by Sunday evening at 6 p.m., still no customers. In an industry already battered by weak consumption, three silent days felt like an omen. She said she had never experienced such emptiness in all her years in business. Beijing's streets may be crowded, but consumer confidence has thinned to a thread. Every month begins the same way. Rent first, then water and electricity, then phone bills. If her landlady had not reminded her, she might have forgotten to pay rent again. For one day's delay, 100 yuan was deducted from her deposit. Around her, neighbors, shop owners, and employees alike had already returned home early for the new year. Many said they might not come back. Business was too difficult. Hope was too fragile. She calculated her expenses carefully. 2,200 yuan for rent, 500 for daily necessities, 200 for utilities, 200 for phone bills, around 1,500 for food, roughly 4,600 yuan each month just to maintain the basics. That number does not include emergencies, gifts, travel, or dreams. Living in Beijing means learning to restrain desire. You think twice before buying. You hesitate before spending. The city never slows down, but if you slow down, it will leave you behind. Yet she remains, because some ambitions can only be chased in a place like this. Another couple in Beijing for over a decade explained why they stay. Together they earn more than 20,000 yuan per month. They do not own property. They do not have a Beijing household registration. They rent. After covering expenses, they can still save around 9,000 yuan monthly. If they return to their hometown, they might save nothing. Yes, Beijing is exhausting, but it is also anonymous and inclusive. No one watches your every move. No one critiques your lifestyle. In their hometown, stable public sector jobs might pay only 3,000 or 4,000 yuan a month. Returning home would mean lower income, but more time with parents. Wherever you choose, something is gained and something is lost. In a narrow urban village room measuring barely three square meters, another woman pays 800 yuan per month. Everything you see here is my home, she says, gesturing at a bed, a cabinet overhead, a small shelf near the door for hanging clothes. A single painting brightens one wall. Green paper covers another. A calendar salvaged from a bathroom hangs beside her pillow. Space is limited, but dignity remains intact. A family of four from rural Henan province shares a similar balancing act. The husband earns 15,000 yuan a month. Rent alone consumes 4,300 yuan. Add milk powder, diapers, groceries, utilities, and the margin narrows quickly. Living paycheck to paycheck is routine. One weekend, seeing their children's longing faces, they bought tickets to an indoor amusement park. Paying felt painful, but when the children's eyes sparkled like stars, when laughter filled the air, the weight of daily stress lightened. Later, they ordered food delivery and watched their children eat happily. In those small moments, hardship felt justified. They are not wealthy and pressure never disappears, but family warmth makes the struggle meaningful. Another young couple works in internet-related jobs, each earning over 10,000 yuan per month. To save just 10 yuan a day, she rides a small electric scooter to work regardless of wind or rain. Her husband works overtime to reduce housing costs. They live in Chengdong village on the outskirts of Wuhan, far from their child, who remains in their hometown. Every Friday, they travel more than 700 kilometers just to hold him, to see how he has grown in a week, to hear him call out, Dad and Mom. They admit they lack prestigious degrees and influential connections. They cannot command high salaries, so they compensate with effort. As long as they are young and healthy, earning something is better than earning nothing. That belief carries them through exhaustion. Pan Li and her husband work in a supermarket in Beijing's Chaoyang district. She earns around 6,000 yuan as a voice promoter. He earns between 6,000 and 7,000 yuan in the beverage section. Together, Sun and him gather about 13,000 yuan monthly. Recently, they face the burden of a mortgage down payment. After paying it, they reduce daily living expenses to just 2,000 yuan a month. She eats alone at work to avoid unnecessary spending. Social activities are minimized. They even argued about whether to leave Beijing. Without higher education or specialized skills, what jobs could they find back home? Yet giving up feels like surrender, so they persist, at least for now. A young woman from Gansu earns 8,500 yuan a month at a flower shop near Beijing's 6th Ring Road. She pays 1,400 yuan in rent, cooks daily to save money, and lives modestly. Not starving, but far from comfortable. Though she sometimes thinks about lying flat, in Beijing, survival means constant effort. So she keeps working hard and trusting that persistence will pay off. Another couple, both university graduates, now earn nearly 20,000 yuan a month combined, with the wife bringing in 6,000 steadily. They limit spending to around 3,000 yuan to build savings, believing true competitiveness comes from continuous self-improvement, not just degrees. In 2023, after facing discrimination during COVID, they bought a 140-square meter apartment in Chongping, paying over 50,000 yuan up front and taking on a heavy mortgage. When one spouse later lost his job, the burden fell on the other. They sometimes wonder if renting would have left them more secure, but they chose stability and keep moving forward. Across Beijing, ordinary people are recalculating everything. Food, rent, dreams, dignity. The economy may be slowing, but their determination to endure has not. And as the new year approaches, amid quiet streets and cautious spending, one truth becomes clear. Prosperity may fluctuate. Policies may shift. Industries may rise and fall. But resilience, forged in hardship, is what keeps millions moving forward, one careful step at a time.