Interface News Reporter | Zheng Cuiying
Interface News Editor | Cui Yu
Crazy Thursday here has nothing to do with chicken fries, but 1,000 megabytes of broadband, desks and chairs for the office, free tea, green on the open windowsill, and a group of freelancers who also work as individuals.
Every Thursday, a group of code farmers, designers, and Web3 entrepreneurs from Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, or around Hangzhou gather at the Hang Yi Mo Cafe in Liangzhu Cultural Village, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, to exchange the latest information, talk about the projects they are working on, and connect with useful resources on the "Thursday Crazy Code Day".
"Freelancers spend most of their time doing creative work on their own, but they also need a time to connect with the outside world. On this day, he can work, chat with friends, and socially connect, forming a space with community attributes. Dao Ji, the founder of Hang Yimo Cafe, said. He is a very "e" owner and can talk to every customer in the store.
Daoji himself is also a "freelancer", graduated from Hunan in 2008 to Hangzhou, experienced ten years of rapid development of the Internet in Alibaba, last year the family had two treasures, and at the same time felt the "35-year-old crisis", and discussed with partners to do a business that can enjoy a better life in the next ten or twenty years, so he left Dachang and partnered to open an independent coffee brand "Hang Yimo".
In May last year, he noticed that there was always a group of software engineers coming to the store, and someone asked if it could be a regular party. So they used AI to make posters of photos of the party in the store and wrote "Let's work together" – and "Thursday Crazy Code Day" was born.
Tuladin is one of the main initiators of the offline gathering of the technology community. In 2013, he said goodbye to his job at a foreign company in Beijing and returned to Hangzhou, and moved to Liangzhu at the end of 2018. After the epidemic, "pure netizens in the technology circle" were eager for real socialization, and a group of people slowly gathered in Hangzhou.
"In the era of rheology, technological development has given birth to many new possibilities. Especially with the blessing of AI, companies with Internet platforms and large organizational structures have generally laid off employees, and all kinds of talents are scattered, and new outlets are needed. "Doki's language bears the imprint of Dachang and a well-trained ability to think inductively.
He believes that the previous definition of "freelancer" is too narrow, it is actually a deorganized career form and a new mode of production, "does not rely on a strong organization, can complete their own ideas and commercialize, small individual organizations are full of vitality, and there are also some opportunities brewing". A Shenzhen startup team that participated in Crazy Code Day last year also recently moved to Hangzhou Future Science and Technology City near Liangzhu.
The AI era has given the software development industry a chance to do something all over again. The development of a software often only requires 1 person, plus the design and packaging, and a team of 2-3 people can complete it, using the open interface of generative AI, it can connect with the market demand of millions or even tens of millions.
At present, there are more than 200 million flexible employees in the mainland. The "2023 China New Flexible Employment Report" jointly released by the Institute of Economics and Social Research of Jinan University and Zhaopin.com also pointed out that the proportion of new flexible employment recruitment demand has increased from 2020 to 2023, and the scale of flexible employment accounts for about one-fifth of the total employment scale. In 2022, the Occupational Classification Dictionary of the People's Republic of China (2022 Edition) issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security marked 97 digital occupations for the first time. In Liangzhu, these flexible workers include software engineers, designers, illustrators, photographers, consultants, live streaming e-commerce, short video bloggers, etc.
The Yuhang district government of Hangzhou has also taken note of this phenomenon. "The good news is that free office space for freelancers has gone one step further." Dao Ji recently updated a message on his Xiaohongshu account "Free Potato". "Jade Bird Market is a commercial place, and there are too many tourists on weekends, so the government plans to vacate the nearby United Front Work Department event space and transform it into a free co-working space for freelancers." Dao Ji said that this office space is about two to three hundred square meters, with office areas and conference areas, and has now entered the design stage.
Why Liangzhu?
"Good environment" and "low housing prices" are the most cited reasons. Liangzhu is located in the west of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, and is the last station of Hangzhou Metro Line 2, with Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins Park to the north, Westlake University (Yungu Community) to the south, and the Future Science and Technology City, where Alibaba's global headquarters is located in 20 minutes. The price of second-hand housing is half of that of Binjiang and West Lake districts.
In addition to the average price of about 10,000 yuan in Guangzhou, the housing price of Liangzhu Cultural Village is also low, and the transaction price of second-hand houses is 2 to 30,000 yuan per square meter. The rent for a two-bedroom apartment is between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan, which is equivalent to a bedroom in Beijing.
"At the same time, the unique appearance of the place is free." Teacher Ding, an education blogger who moved to Liangzhu from Xiaoshan in 2023, said. She has a bachelor's degree in German, a master's degree in business administration, an MBA at Tsinghua University, and a small private equity fund in Beijing in 2015, mainly in education.
"In Beijing, the collective subconscious will exert its influence on you, and even the middle class, who earn millions a year, have a low quality of life in order to maintain superficial things. I have also experienced a cramped housing situation, having to pay off the mortgage, and sending my children to international schools. After coming to Hangzhou, all the desires I had in Beijing disappeared. Ms. Ding said that the lifestyle of Liangzhu is very "chill", she likes the integration of Chinese and Western ancient and modern urban styles, and the low-density spatial pattern of Liangzhu Cultural Village is more like Europe.
In her spare time, she would go to the nearby village to meet with her friend "XCMG" to drink tea and chat. XCMG is a timber structure engineer and a native of Yuhang. When he returned to Hangzhou from Beijing in 2018, he designed and built a prefabricated wooden house in the village, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows in front of a green lawn and a bamboo forest in the distance. Wood structure prefabricated buildings are more low-carbon and environmentally friendly, and his daily work is to take orders remotely, and also go to the project location to do the design and construction of wood structure buildings. Mr. Ding's life wish is to start a business in Hangzhou to save money, and build such a house in the future.
Honey runs the "Freedom Liangzhu" account and community on Xiaohongshu and WeChat, and often organizes offline communication activities for freelancers, because "most of the freelancers in the village are isolated islands and need friends." She always jokes, "The end of Hangzhou is Liangzhu".
She grew up in Liangzhu, where more than 20 years ago there were only a few hills, but with the construction of the Liangzhu Museum, the Version Museum, and the Liangzhu Cultural Village, it has gradually become an urban area with a good natural environment. In 2023, the opening of Jade Bird Ji Commercial Street will fill the vacancy in the area, and more and more people will pour in.
"The first batch of owners came from the spillover effect of Alibaba." "At that time, there were not many communities in Yuhang District that could be bought, and Liangzhu Cultural Village had a livable environment and was not far from Ali, and the first batch of villagers were mainly from Ali and the surrounding locals. "At the end of 2017, Liangzhu was connected to the subway, and last year the direct passage between Liangzhu and the future science and technology city was opened, and the traffic is more convenient. Due to its distance from the city and the excellent value for money, Liangzhu has gradually attracted freelancers who do not need to clock in every day to become new villagers.
Honey used to be a migrant worker in the Ali department, and she left her job in 2023 to return to Liangzhu to find a new way of life. She intuitively felt the difference in the community atmosphere, "I used to live diagonally opposite Alibaba's Xixi Park, and people rushed out collectively in the morning rush hour and came back late in the evening, so there was almost no life. And on Liangzhu's weekdays, you can always see people drinking coffee and eating. Honey said that many people lamented that Liangzhu is the rhythm of "doing four days off and three days off".
The members of the "Freedom Liangzhu" community are mobile. "Maybe you live for half a year and a year, and depending on your work, many people are in a state of travel and not settled. There are also a lot of freelancers from Beijing. Honey said. At the end of last year, an article she posted on her official account "Why "North Korean defectors" chose to come to Liangzhu" became popular, which is to describe the new villagers who came to Liangzhu from Beijing.
The owner of the coffee, Beifeng, is a native of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, and was the regional manager of an outdoor sports brand in Beijing before 2019. His current café is located in a residential neighborhood 10 minutes away from the Cultural Village, and the house is also bought nearby, which is infinitely close to his ideal life of "more money, less life, and close to home".
Tina, who settled in Weihai with her other half, plans to live in Liangzhu for half a year. She spent 10 years in her 20s in Beijing, engaged in the real estate industry and Internet advertising, and now has opened a Taobao store and develops her own cultural and creative products. "Hangzhou has an atmosphere of doing e-commerce, and when you go to the mall, you will see the counter clerk doing live broadcasts, and it is convenient to find suppliers." She rented a duplex of more than 180 square meters in Liangzhu Cultural Village, with a monthly rent of 3,400 yuan.
On the one hand, the cautious pursuit of stability, streamlining and optimization by major Internet companies, and on the other hand, the bold attempt to seek another way of life have made Liangzhu a living enclave that opposes the working methods of large manufacturers.
Data shows that from 2021 to the end of 2023, the number of Tencent employees will decrease by 7,355, and Alibaba will reduce about 20,000 employees in 2023. Young and middle-aged people who are anxious about "involution" or "layoffs" are eager to find a third way.
"The geographical location and conditions of Liangzhu are a place that can be attacked and defended for many people. The proximity to the future science and technology city, the second center of Hangzhou, allows you to get a comfortable city life at half or even a third of the price. Lin Gaojian, founder of Iron Dog Coffee, said.
He graduated from Zhejiang University, went to Beijing to do cultural tourism entrepreneurship and coffee e-commerce, and returned to Hangzhou two years ago to open an offline coffee shop, combining products with local cultural tourism. "The phrase 'keep your feet on the ground and look up at the stars' is a good fit here, because the stars are romantic, there are a group of entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists and designers, and at the same time there is a very hands-on engineer culture, where the two groups of people inspire each other, lead each other and live together."
The cultural atmosphere comes from the "big roof" of the Liangzhu Culture and Art Center, designed by Tadao Ando and hosts 300 cultural events every year, from the large roof bookstore with a collection of 50,000 books, from the one-way bookstore "Big Barn" that refers to the shape of the houses of the ancestors of Liangzhu, and from the Jade Bird Collection, which has unique investment standards.
"The entrepreneurial team of the big roof is from Zhejiang University, when it first opened, it was a cold cement house, there was no jade bird set, and there were no cherry blossoms planted next to it, so we don't know when it will be on fire here. And as the community atmosphere of Liangzhu Cultural Village gradually takes shape, just like the seeds planted more than ten years ago, with the convergence of people, a forest is planted. Lin Gaojian sighed.
The cultural atmosphere attracts content creators and cultural arts workers. The blogger "Lao Lu, who loves tea", is a villager of Liangzhu Cultural Village. At the beginning of this year, the top 100 UP main "Film and Television Hurricane" of Station B moved into Liangzhu's dream town. Yuanwang Technology, a live broadcast listed company that has signed more than 50 cooperative stars, is in the future science and technology city. Xiao Nan, who used to work as HR in a large factory, encountered a career bottleneck after taking care of the baby full-time, and transformed into a freelance drama tutor, teaching students of different ages to heal their psychology through drama.
In 2023, the GDP of Yuhang District will reach 293.643 billion yuan, making it the "first economic zone" in Zhejiang Province, of which the added value of the core industries of the digital economy will be 199.85 billion yuan, an increase of 11.9%, ranking first among all counties (cities and districts) in the province, and the added value of the digital economy industry will account for nearly 70% of the district's GDP. In the past three years, 43 artificial intelligence industry enterprises have been established in Hangzhou, of which 12 are in Yuhang. Yuhang is laying out future industries such as brain science and brain-like intelligence, intelligent bionics, and quantum information.
Compared with the strategically planned future science and technology city, the freelance community of the Liangzhu community is more of a coincidence.
And the community atmosphere of Liangzhu Cultural Village provides a foundation for this coincidence. As the third batch of provincial-level pilot projects for the integration and improvement of future communities in Zhejiang Province, this is a community that is very much in line with the concept of "sustainability", and has pioneering practices in terms of environment, society and governance.
In terms of environmental design, there are no high-density buildings, and the green area is high, which is more like a pastoral area with modern life scenes; In 2011, the first community "Villagers' Convention" was born in China, including respecting the old and caring for the young, driving into the town without honking, advocating the use of bicycles, and the use of environmental protection bags. In the "Future Entrepreneurship Scenario" planned by the Cultural Village, it is also mentioned that according to the characteristic entrepreneurial needs of the digital economy, cultural creativity and other fields, the content of the incubation room, shared office, home office and other entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial spaces is allocated.
Although the environment is friendly, Ying, who settled in Liangzhu, also reminded later villagers that choosing freelancing is not about lying flat. She left the top podcast company in Beijing and bought a house in Liangzhu to work in the operation of the fruit and fresh food supply chain. "Many people who bought a house in Liangzhu originally had a house in the city, and many of those who started a business in Liangzhu were the second generation. For entrepreneurs who are starting from scratch, don't have the illusion that life will be easy."
Wang Kai, who was engaged in e-commerce entrepreneurship in Beijing, started to start a business and do AI applications after coming to Hangzhou, with a team of 3 people, borrowing a friend's company's workstation to continue to develop products, and the scope of activities basically revolves around Liangzhu Cultural Village. He believes that whether life is anxious or not depends on the individual's personality, for example, he is constantly anxious. He used AI to translate and edit U.S. stock market information and email it to Chinese investors, and now he is developing a subscription content integration platform called "Squirrel Quick Look".
"People are faced with too much information, watching media news, and tracking official accounts, Weibo, and B stations, they need to jump to multiple platforms and switch multiple devices, and want to make a product that 'has no algorithm recommendation, information cocoon, only the content I subscribe'." Wang Kai said.
Zhu Haoyu, a sophomore at Hangzhou No. 14 High School and a frequent visitor to Crazy Thursday, spent an hour in junior high school to complete a NotificationRead app that helps users turn the content of the e-book they are reading into a notification in the upper right corner of the computer, helping them fish and read books when they go to work. There's also a more downloaded app called IconChanger, which helps "OCD" people change the round logo of the app to a square with rounded corners or other styles.
With the help of the Crazy Code Day community on Thursday, Haoyu Chu and his partner Li Luoluo will host an AdventureX hackathon at Lakeside University in mid-July, with more than 1,000 applicants and more than 200 people participating, with each team building a project in five days and presenting it on the last day.
In Xiaohongshu, Dao Ji described the current personalized mode of production, which has specific requirements for the people who choose this way of life: to have business opportunities and ability to prepare after leaving the organization, and to have the ability to execute against personal inertia. "What is certain is that freelancing is not about lying flat," he stressed.