Beijing in Chaos The sky has fallen Millions Flee as the City Spirals Out of Control

What is the final ending for a Beijing drifter? Today I received a message on WeChat from a high school classmate. Because they still cannot obtain a Beijing hukou, they have no choice but to take their child back to their hometown for middle school later this year. This is already the third friend I know who has quietly packed up and left Beijing this year. After drifting here for more than 10 years, the problems that once seemed distant, hukou restrictions, unbearable housing prices, children's education and aging parents have suddenly become heavy chains dragging down countless Beijing drifters. More and more families are quietly leaving, their suitcases filled not with success but with exhaustion and disappointment. At 35, after 10 years of struggling in Beijing, I finally resigned. My company recently carried out restructuring and our entire department faced reassignment. The company gave us two choices, accept a transfer to a new department or resign and receive compensation. At 35, a cruel reality becomes impossible to ignore. The workplace has less and less patience for people our age. Even if I survive this round, I may still face the same fate in a few years. Watching more and more friends abandon the dream they once chased so desperately and return to their hometowns, I realized that countless people who once came to Beijing with hope are now leaving with nothing but fatigue. Many spent the best years of their youth here, yet in the end they still cannot afford a home, cannot secure a hukou and cannot even guarantee their children a place in a local school. After the Spring Festival, Beijing's streets feel noticeably emptier than before. Behind many closed apartment doors and office cubicles, families are quietly making the same painful decision. Whether to continue struggling in this city or leave everything behind and return home. For countless ordinary people, leaving Beijing is not a choice of courage, but the result of years of pressure finally becoming too heavy to bear. According to official data from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics and other sources, as of the end of 2024, the permanent young population aged 20 to 34 in Beijing was 4.54 million, a decrease of 345,000 compared to the previous year and a decrease of 1.22 million compared to 2020. Data for 2025 has not yet been released. My husband has already decided when we will return to our hometown and has bought the tickets. The moment the tickets were purchased, our hearts strangely felt calmer. In the end, we decided to leave Beijing together and return to our hometown to start over. For many migrant workers like us, leaving this city is not a sudden decision, but the final chapter of a long and exhausting struggle that countless families across China are now quietly experiencing. No matter how hard we work or how hard we try to live in this city, it seems that our monthly salary is only enough to cover rent. Housing prices in the big city are beyond my reach, and the residency permit is an insurmountable obstacle. My wife, Wendy, said that in the end, they chose to compromise with life, say goodbye to Beijing, say goodbye to the crowded subways and endless overtime, and return to the place where she grew up to live a stable life with her husband. As soon as her husband returned to Beijing, he resigned from his company. These past two days, he has been busy with the resignation and handover process. When he finally resigned, he suddenly felt relieved. Wendy sighed. Life is not just one way of living, but many choices. Often being comfortable is more important than anything else. After five years of living in Beijing, my salary dropped from over 10,000 yuan to 4,200 yuan. While rent was 2,000 yuan a month, I decided to leave Beijing and go back to my hometown. My parents were strongly opposed. On the phone, my mother cried again, saying, Beijing is so great, with its subway network and numerous hospitals and specialists. Why do you have to go back to this small place like Tiling? My father grabbed the phone and said in a harsh tone, After hanging up, I looked out the window at the glittering office buildings, and my eyes reddened. The author said that his parents didn't know that he had been living in a cramped room of just over 10 square meters all these years. To send more pocket money home, he even moved into an urban village with a monthly rent of 900 yuan one year. He understood that Beijing had abundant resources, and staying meant more opportunities. But only he knew the hardships and pressures he had endured over the past five years. Perhaps his parents were worried that he would regret it, but there is no standard answer to life. He just wanted to find a path that would make him more comfortable and hope to avoid such hardship in the future. China's household registration system acts like an invisible net, determining whether a family can truly settle down in a city. For countless people working in Beijing, the hardest hurdle isn't housing prices, commuting, or work pressure, but whether their children can attend school smoothly in the local area. Families working in Beijing often face complex point-based policies, strict document verification, and long waits. Many people work hard for years only to find that their children can't even attend a nearby primary school. Therefore, it's common to see this scenario in Beijing. Every school season, some people are anxious about buying school district housing, while others quietly pack their bags and leave the city they have lived in for more than a decade. One blogger, 30 years old, stayed in Beijing after graduating with a master's degree. Recently, he suddenly discovered that several of his classmates had left Beijing and returned to their hometowns. He graduated in 2019. Liu Jing had quite a few classmates back then. Six years have passed in the blink of an eye, and he couldn't believe how quickly everyone's Beijing drifter experience had ended. Another classmate without a Beijing residency permit bought a house in Qingdao when they got married and never intended to stay in Beijing. Are brick-and-mortar stores really going to be eliminated? We used to be so busy that we couldn't eat lunch until 2 or 3 p.m. But now we even have time to eat and chat. Our daily turnover hovers around 1,000 yuan, and it's hard to earn 2,000 yuan. It's not just our restaurant. There is hardly anyone on the street. Are they all ordering takeout? Some customers who live far away ask why we don't offer takeout. But the delivery cost alone is enough for several bowls of noodles. Actually, we did offer takeout a few years ago. Delivery riders kept urging us to accept orders. And because we were worried about bad reviews, we started offering takeout. But after a while, our in-store customers started complaining because everyone was waiting. Our store is in the suburbs, and many takeout customers live far away. The noodles wouldn't taste good if they sat too long, and we even had two returned orders. Eventually, we simply canceled online takeout. A few months ago, I heard from other restaurants that takeout revenue wasn't even as high as dine-in revenue, so they also stopped offering takeout. He sighed that running a physical store is really exhausting, not only physically, but also psychologically. But he believes that as long as he perseveres, he may eventually usher in a brighter future. Today, I am ending my nine years of life as a Beijing drifter. It's really time to say goodbye. Beijing is truly the place where many people's dreams begin and end. Although I had been planning to leave Beijing for some time and the decision was well considered, now that the moment to set off has arrived, watching the movers carry away my luggage fills me with mixed emotions. Images of my nine dreamlike years keep flashing through my mind. Endless overtime, crowded subways, seeing the streets at 1 a.m. and the sunrise at 6 a.m. The pace of life and work here is extremely fast. As an ordinary person, he increasingly feels that he is just existing here, not truly living. Coincidentally, he recently lost his job and has no choice but to leave Beijing and return to his hometown, unwilling to bear such immense pressure any longer. This story comes from Aji, an actor. He says he has been a Beijing drifter for seven years. Although he has saved a six-figure sum, almost none of it came from acting. Seven years ago, he came to Beijing with 4,000 yuan and rented a small apartment for 900 yuan a month. After paying rent, he only had 3,000 yuan left. Back then, he spent his days submitting resumes to various film crews. Over 20 days, he submitted 50 resumes but didn't receive a single interview. Eventually, he had only 370 yuan left and with rent due, soon he still hadn't earned a single penny. He felt truly desperate. Life was not as rosy as he had imagined when he was still in school. Just when he was at a loss, he finally landed a small role in a Beijing production, A Minor Prince. Although the role was not large, it eased his immediate financial burden. Aji says that since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2019, his opportunities have dwindled and he has spent almost all the money he once saved. Later, his father passed away during the pandemic and he became the family's breadwinner. Everyone says that 2025 will be tough for physical clothing stores but I still don't want to believe it. With only four days left to pay the electricity bill and rent, it is really difficult to make a decision. After so many years of running a clothing store with my husband, this year seems to be the hardest. In recent days, the temperature in Beijing has risen above 20 degrees Celsius, which is normally the peak season for clothing sales in March and April. Yet even during the peak season, we sometimes lose money. Our shop's daily expenses exceed 1,000 yuan, meaning we face more than 1,000 yuan in costs every day we open the door. The mall still has many visitors but their willingness to buy is low. Expensive items feel too expensive to them while cheap items fail to attract interest. Business is becoming increasingly difficult. Now 35 years old, I am leaving Beijing. After more than 10 years of struggling in Beijing in the summer of 2024, due to business downsizing, I was forced to leave the workforce. Now I have been unemployed for almost two years. During this time, I have constantly submitted resumes and attended interviews. But as I grow older, finding a job at 35 is becoming increasingly difficult. Every time I mention my age during an interview, it almost always marks the end of the conversation.