How involution turned China’s ride-hailing drivers into part-time mahjong pros

“Ride-hailing cars are now wellness cars.”

This was the most philosophical line I heard from a ride-hailing driver during my trip to Dali before the Spring Festival. He said it lightly, with a touch of self-mockery, but I could hear the bitterness beneath the humour.

Erhai in Dali, Yunnan, is the one place in China I have most wanted to visit, bar none. My fondness for Dali has nothing to do with the TV drama starring Liu Yifei that was filmed there. That longing dates back to two trips more than ten years ago, when I was struck by the lakeside guesthouses’ intimate, unvarnished closeness to Erhai, the serene elegance of watching the sunrise and the simple candour of the lady boss at a Bai ethnic restaurant.

Over a decade on, that unvarnished closeness has disappeared, and it cannot be simply attributed to “commercialisation”. 

The changes at Erhai reflect broader shifts in China — the influx of ride-hailing cars, the disappearance of lakeside guesthouses, and the rising number of people who “lie flat” (躺平族), rejecting the pressure to overwork and overachieve.

Over ten years ago, there was no ride-hailing in China; to get the most out of your time around Erhai, you had to rent a car or carpool for convenience. Now, the emergence of ride-hailing has made it exceedingly convenient for tourists.

I rode with five or six drivers, and their views were nearly unanimous: since the pandemic, the economy has been weak, unemployment has risen and because ride-hailing has a low barrier to entry, many unemployed people have piled into the work.

One driver who previously worked in Shenzhen returned home to drive because he was unable to find employment, while a few drivers complained that ride-hailing is too involuted, or competitive.

Behind this so-called “involution” lies a deeper issue: there are simply too many ride-hailing cars on the road, including numerous unlicensed “black cars” operating without permits. During off-peak hours, platforms pay very little per ride. But when fares surge at peak times, the roads are jammed, making it hard to take on jobs. Either way, it’s the platforms and capital owners who profit most, not the drivers doing the driving.

Most surprisingly, all the drivers said they did not earn less during the pandemic, due to fewer cars on the road, higher fares and continued travel demand.

One driver was the funniest. He said blandly: “Now, when we drive, we’re basically driving for wellness.”

What did he mean?

Friends who drive for ride-hailing drop their children off at school early in the morning. If they get good jobs on the platform, they keep driving; if not, or if they simply don’t feel like driving, they send a message in their WeChat group to organise a game of mahjong. Once enough people join, they book a room. If even more drivers aren’t up for driving, they simply park their cars together and watch others play.

“We play dice and mahjong, and whoever wins buys some drinks and contributes to the room fee. Win or lose, it’s only a couple hundred RMB either way (US$14 to US$28)”.

Sometimes, if they do not get good jobs and are not in the mood for mahjong, a few friends park their cars together, pile into one, and go for a drive around the area to unwind.

“The current ride-hailing market in Dali is as they say; just enough to get by. Even if you work hard, you get that little bit more, which just isn’t worth it. For the first couple of years you hustle to recoup your costs, but after that you just do enough every day to cover daily expenses.”

In Dali, you can drink the famous local beer Wind Flower Snow Moon (风花雪月啤酒, meaning a life of luxury and pleasure) every day — but real life is far from a bed of roses. Fortunately, this driver knows how to practice self-care; rather than brooding alone, he and his peers have turned their ride-hailing cars into “wellness cars”.

“Involution” has become almost a defining feature of the Chinese market — so much so that its absence would make headlines. The relentless undercutting of prices, cutthroat competition and practices that fuel deflation push profits down across entire industries. Everyone fights for market share, yet no one makes money, and the grind becomes unsustainable, leaving only one or two players standing.

This Chinese-style involution also creates a butterfly effect, spilling over into overseas markets and becoming a sharp weapon for globalisation.

I was back in Singapore over Chinese New Year and caught up with relatives and friends on the first day of the new year. One relative, an engineer at a European automobile technology company, said her firm recently had a round of layoffs, with a second round in the second quarter of 2026. She estimated only a 50% chance of keeping her job, and could only leave it to fate. If it does not pan out well for her, she might look for opportunities in neighbouring countries, as a lot of manufacturing has already shifted from China to Southeast Asia.

Tracing the cause, my relative attributed it to the heavy subsidies for Chinese electric vehicles, which allowed ample room for price cuts and promotions, leaving European cars unable to compete. “No one can beat them in this price war,” she said.

China previously imposed export controls on rare earths, magnets and other materials, forcing foreign carmakers to scramble for alternative supplies and stockpile them, which drove up costs and put a heavy burden on companies. “One moment they’re willing to relax controls, the next it’s all tightened again. No one knows what will come next”.

However, some Chinese media analyses have argued that subsidies are not the key factor behind the rise of China’s new energy vehicles, but tax cuts and the efforts of private enterprises. Nevertheless, excessive involution is still the obvious downside. To outsiders, this is also driven by a complex cycle of weak domestic demand and overcapacity, which in turn amplifies market instability.

Chinese-style involution is no longer just a domestic issue — it has become a structural risk in the era of globalisation. It is not only China’s workforce that is being exhausted and crushed by it, as it has indirectly reshaped employment landscapes in other countries. The Chinese model might not be replicable across countries internationally, but the pressure of Chinese-style involution could have already gone global.

The problem of disorderliness and low-price competition has caught the attention of China’s top leadership, and “anti-involution” was written for the first time into the government work report in 2025.

Before the Spring Festival, China issued its first official guidelines regulating pricing behaviour in the automobile industry. Some ride-hailing platforms have also been formally summoned by regulators and told to honour public commitments to reduce commission rates and ensure drivers receive reasonable income. These are all positive signs of course correction.

As Chinese-style involution takes effect domestically and abroad, it is inspiring to see the proactive and positive attitude with which my relative is responding to changes in the workplace, and the cheerful openness of the driver in Dali: taking things as they come without worrying unnecessarily. Everyone should drive their own inner “wellness car”.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “把网约车开成了养生车”.

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