Live and Leave: Experience Orientation and the Guest Mind among Chinese Co-Living Youth Today
Co-living residents highlight the present, exploration, and fluidity as central to their ‘experience orientation’, viewing these traits as essential to the uniqueness of their life.
Interactions within co-living spaces tend to emphasise the present. Upon leaving, the roommate relationship typically concludes, with any further developments being largely serendipitous and not a primary focus during the co-living experience. This orientation could be described as an ‘experience orientation’ [体验倾向]. This ‘experience orientation’ stands in contrast to the ‘pragmatic orientation’ [实用倾向], a concept that aligns with the contemporary trend of ‘long-termism’ [长期主义]. The latter refers to individuals who prioritise building connections through professional and business activities, thereby enhancing their social identity and creating opportunities that offer meaningful advantages for their future careers and personal lives. Instead, the future of our co-living residents is encapsulated by the slogan of our co-living house: ‘Explore more possibilities in life.’ The emphasis on ‘more’ highlights a desire to embrace diverse experiences, reflecting an openness to exploration rather than a pursuit of a definitive ‘best’ or ‘most suitable’ path. This mindset is particularly characteristic of vibrant youth, a life stage marked by fluidity and the understanding that life trajectories are not rigidly fixed.
The above reflection on the ‘experience orientation’—a focus on the present among Chinese co-living youth—was articulated by Liuzhi, a co-living resident, on the public account of their co-living space on Notion, a recording application used by residents to document their daily lives. This ‘orientation’ prioritises living fully in the present, framing the future not as a fixed trajectory but as an open landscape of possibilities disconnected from the immediate demands of the present. Why do co-living youth favour the ‘experience orientation’ and the present over the ‘pragmatic orientation’ and long-termism? What impacts does this attitude have on the co-living experience? More broadly, what does this approach to life tell us about contemporary Chinese youth and society at large?
Co-Living, Mobility, and Individualisation
In contemporary China, co-living has emerged as a new residential arrangement among some young people. Referred to as gongju (共居, literally ‘living in common’), it differs from more conventional joint rental arrangements (合租). The key distinction lies in the self-organisation, egalitarian ethos, communication, and sharing among co-living residents, which set this choice apart from living situations characterised by minimal interaction among roommates, commercial collective setups, or arrangements based solely on co-working relations. Through co-living, they seek to cultivate emotional intimacy and build social connections in large cities within a collective environment that helps alleviate both the financial burden of high rents and the emotional strain of loneliness.
My research is based on one year of fieldwork conducted in Shanghai from September 2021 to August 2022, with a follow-up visit from July to September 2023. I selected two co-living houses—referred to as Experimental House T and Experimental House F (hereinafter EHT and EHF)—as my primary sites, immersing myself in a 24/7 living experience alongside the other residents. Both co-living houses are strategically located in the central area of Shanghai, with convenient access to public transport and urban amenities. Each house covers approximately 150 square metres, with spacious living rooms that take up nearly half the total area. However, this central location and generous space come at the cost of high rent: EHT’s monthly rent started at RMB18,500 (later decreasing to RMB15,000), while EHF was priced at RMB22,000. Despite the seemingly high costs, the rent is shared among seven or eight residents, making it a relatively affordable arrangement for each individual.
The residents are predominantly white-collar workers employed in internet and advertising companies, freelancers, and gap-year students pursuing studies in the United States, Europe, and Australia, most of whom are aged in their twenties or early thirties. Co-living residents are typically migrants who lack extensive existing social connections in Shanghai. They move to the city for various reasons—such as career opportunities, personal interests, or study—but often arrive without a strong network of classmates, friends, or family.
Fengshi’s experience illustrates this common situation. After graduating from a college in Nanjing, he followed his classmates to Shanghai, where they established a studio producing short videos for social media. During my time living with Fengshi, I noticed only one occasion when he went out with a friend: he visited the Shanghai Museum with a former classmate who was in town. The rest of the time, if he wasn’t at work, he stayed home. In an interview, he candidly admitted that he had ‘no friends here’ (in Shanghai) and rarely interacted with colleagues outside work.
Another resident, Zhuru, moved to Shanghai because of her boyfriend. Her initial motivation for relocating was to maintain the relationship, prompting her to quit her job in Beijing and find a new one in Shanghai. However, things took an unexpected turn when the relationship ended. Zhuru jokingly remarked that while her boyfriend had disappeared, the job had remained.
Co-living residents experience high mobility, typically staying in shared living arrangements for an average of six months. When I revisited my field sites in the summer of 2023, only two original residents remained at EHT. The others had moved on: some had gone abroad for further education, others had begun cohabiting with romantic partners, and some had changed jobs and relocated to different cities. For all residents, establishing a long-term living arrangement is not a priority. Instead, co-living is seen as an experiential phase—one of many possibilities available during their ‘vibrant youth’.
This orientation reveals a paradoxical relationship with the present, which is simultaneously cherished and disposable. On one hand, co-living offers a quasi-familial experience, providing warmth and companionship as residents navigate solitary work or study lives in Shanghai. Kongqing, a resident originally from northern China who graduated from a US university and began working in Shanghai, reflected: ‘Co-living is a warm experience, especially for working people like me. It gives me a feeling of family. In the co-living environment, I feel comfortable and enjoy the intimacy of friends after I return from exhausting work.’ The high turnover of roommates further enriches the experience, allowing residents to meet new people and form fresh connections. On the other hand, residents do not hesitate to leave when new opportunities arise—be it for career, education, or personal growth. This open-ended approach enables them to sever ties with the present moment in co-living, confident that other meaningful experiences and relationships lie ahead. Kongqing, for example, left after falling in love and later moved to another city for a better job. As Liuzhi aptly observes, residents fully engage with and value the present while it lasts, but ultimately move on in pursuit of broader possibilities.
These seemingly contradictory dynamics are deeply rooted in the process of individualisation within Chinese society (Yan 2009, 2010). The post-Mao era, marked by neoliberal reforms, has accelerated individualisation across key domains such as housing, education, and health care, with profound effects on everyday social relations (Hamamura and Xu 2015; Li and Yan 2019). This shift marks a move from collective familial loyalty to the pursuit of individual aspirations, fostering what Yan (2010: 504) terms the ‘enterprising self’—a self characterised by calculated, proactive, and self-disciplined behaviour. Within this neoliberal context, individuals are expected to navigate an expanding array of life choices, striving for self-fulfilment amid market-driven and privatised lifestyles. This transformation opens the possibility of ‘living one’s own life’, while also placing the burden of risk and uncertainty squarely on the individual.
Among Chinese youth, the effects of individualisation manifest in two ways. First, there is a pursuit of re-embedding institutions to mitigate the risks that independence entails. Co-living represents one such form of re-embedding, offering a support system beyond the traditional family structure. This is particularly vital for young people working or studying alone in large urban centres, as co-living provides a sense of communal solidarity and emotional support otherwise absent in the familial void. Second, the ethos of the ‘enterprising self’ drives youth to pursue better life possibilities, treating present conditions as inherently transient and adaptable. Co-living thus functions both as a practical response to the demands of individualisation and as a platform for exploration—allowing residents to balance the need for temporary stability with their aspirations for future growth and transformation.
Guest Mind, Anti-Involution, and Delayed Life
The ‘experience orientation’, shaped by the process of individualisation and embraced by these young individuals, extends beyond co-living and influences multiple facets of their lives, including career decisions and life planning. In an interview, Zhuru offered insight into the contrasting life trajectories of co-living residents and those who choose to remain in Shanghai after completing their education there. According to her, those who stay often have clear goals: building robust social networks, investing in homeownership, and cultivating familial ties within the city. For this group, the transient and rental-based nature of co-living holds limited appeal. In contrast, most co-living residents experience Shanghai as a temporary stopover—a platform for advancing their careers or pursuing other life ambitions. Lacking a strong sense of belonging to the city, they engage with it in instrumental and provisional ways rather than with long-term commitment.
This phenomenon reflects an ideology I refer to as the ‘guest mind’ (客心), wherein young people perceive themselves as temporary guests in the spaces they inhabit, the jobs they hold, and the relationships they form. As guests, they see their current circumstances as inherently transient, always anticipating an eventual departure.
Adopting the guest mind enables young people to avoid taking full responsibility for every aspect of their work and personal lives. This mindset functions as a strategic approach, allowing them to remain open to new possibilities while alleviating the pressures of pervasive involution (内卷). As an academic concept, involution originated with Alexander Goldenweiser (1936) and was later introduced into anthropological discourse by Clifford Geertz (1963) in his study of rice cultivation in Southeast Asia. In China, the term gained popular currency around 2020, as individuals confronted increasing pressures from a hyper-competitive job market, constrained educational mobility, and resource scarcity. Involution describes a situation in which people invest excessive effort—such as working overtime—without receiving proportional returns. Anthropologist Biao Xiang links the widespread experience of involution to limited and homogeneous opportunities and the absence of viable alternatives (Wang and Ge 2020). Individuals are compelled to compete for a narrow pool of desirable outcomes, unable to exit the race due to a lack of other options. As Xiang puts it, involution is a ‘mandatory game’ that people dislike but feel forced to play to survive.
Many people, especially youth, seek to resist this cycle by preserving their ability to leave—that is, by maintaining the status of a guest in their current circumstances. This stance enables them to avoid full immersion in their present realities. Xiangru’s reflection on her co-living experience and broader life plans captures this perspective:
For a while, I didn’t ponder these questions [of leaving and mobility], perhaps because my life was tranquil and satisfying. Yet, to some degree, I wish to retain a sensitivity that enables me to adopt a critical stance, avoiding complete immersion and safeguarding the prospect of departure.
Her words illustrate the delicate balance between enjoying the present and remaining prepared to move on. While the idea of leaving may be more ideological than practical, some young people believe they could leave their jobs or cities at any moment—practising a form of mobility as departure.
This mindset allows them to remain relatively indifferent to issues such as promotion or workplace conflict, thereby easing the pressures of competition in their jobs. Chansu described her work attitude as defined by a ‘quit mood’ (躺平, literally ‘lying flat’), where she accepted assigned tasks but resisted overwork that encroached on her personal time:
I worked with a ‘quit’ mood. So, I said ‘yes’ to all work assigned to me but said ‘no’ to any overwork that encroached on my spare and personal time. If my working conditions didn’t allow for that, I could quit and find another job. That way, I felt relaxed at work. This approach stopped me from becoming the cog I feared turning into. It also taught me how to negotiate with people in different positions and power relations. I realised my colleague sitting at the next desk also had the same ‘quit’ mindset, and our relationship became harmonious. We could complain about our superiors and talk openly. We both knew we might not be working here for long, so there was no need to be wary of one another. That kind of colleague relationship made my work environment more comfortable.
As Chansu’s example shows, the notion of quitting—whether acted upon or kept as a possibility—serves as an anti-involution (反内卷) strategy. By retaining the option to leave, she felt liberated from rigid hierarchies and internal competition. When this mindset is shared among co-workers, it can foster a more cooperative and less antagonistic work culture.
The experience orientation and guest mind significantly shape the life trajectories of contemporary Chinese youth, contributing to the widespread deferral of major life commitments. Faced with an expanding array of life possibilities, many feel little urgency to marry, raise children, or assume the role of household ‘host’. This shift is reflected in rising marriage ages: for men, the average age of first marriage has increased from 23.57 years in 1990 to 25.86 in 2010, and to 29.38 in 2020. For women, it rose from 22.15 years in 1990 to 23.89 in 2010, reaching 27.95 in 2020 (Chen and Zhang 2022; He and Tan 2021). Among co-living residents aged in their mid-twenties, marriage and family formation are rarely considered urgent. When I asked about their marriage plans, most said the idea still felt distant. Faxia, a resident in her thirties and considered by some to be of ‘marriageable age’, emphasised her desire to delay. She cited her strained relationship with her parents and their troubled marriage as key reasons. Faxia explained that she did not want to replicate her parents’ path and instead hoped to find a partner who truly suited her.
Risks and Social Insecurity of Youth
However, while individuals enjoy the freedom to explore more possibilities in their ‘vibrant youth’ through the experience orientation and guest mind, they also face greater risks and uncertainties in life. Bauman (2001, 2002) argues that, dialectically, freedom itself is constrained in postmodernity. As Leo Strauss notes, the flipside of unencumbered freedom is the insignificance of choice (Bauman 2002: xvii). Thus, freedom is not truly free—the price of this freedom is insecurity. ‘Living under conditions of insecurity is a Risikoleben, and it is the acting person who is bound to pay the costs of the risks taken’ (Bauman 2001: 91). To manage these risks, youth continue migrating and seeking new opportunities, hoping to find the ‘best’ life conditions. However, this pursuit raises critical questions: Which opportunity is truly the best? Is there a singular ‘best’ possibility? What is the goal of this constant exploration?
These uncertainties result in youth remaining caught in a cycle of experience and exploration, unable to stop because they do not know where their journey should end. Their emphasis on experience transforms life into a kind of ‘suspended experience’ (悬置性体验), in which, despite their desire to pursue an authentic self, youth often remain uncertain about what they truly want and what conditions they are striving for (Zhou and Xiao 2022). As Liuzhi put it, there is no definitive ‘best’ or ‘most suitable’ option yet. In other words, they are unsure of what the ‘best’ or ‘most suitable’ path looks like, leaving their journey as an ongoing search without a clear destination.
The core issue underlying the dilemma faced by youth in contemporary China is the lack of social security. As Yan (2010) argues, the process of individualisation in China is distinct from Western experiences, primarily due to the absence of a robust social security system and the presence of an authoritarian regime that lacks the classic features of individualism, political liberalism, and public institutions for social re-embedding. This process is more about subjective consciousness than objective life circumstances (Beck 1992: 128). While youth in China enjoy subjective freedoms—such as the ability to choose their jobs, residences, and lifestyles—they are simultaneously confronted with the lack of a sufficient social security system. It becomes their responsibility to secure a better life through education, job opportunities, and personal exploration—in their own words: ‘more possibilities in life’. In this sense, co-living, the experience orientation, and the guest mind emerge as strategies youth use to cope with the pervasive uncertainty and risks in contemporary Chinese society. However, despite these adaptive strategies, youth are left without a sense of security, as there is no comprehensive social security system in China to provide stability or support during times of need.
The Downside of Freedom
The experience orientation and guest mind of youth, as exemplified by co-living residents, reflect both the life strategies and the dilemmas faced by young people in the individualisation process of contemporary Chinese society. While youth enjoy the freedom to explore more possibilities, this freedom serves as a strategy to resist involution and free themselves from traditional familial obligations, such as marriage and childrearing. However, this newfound freedom is accompanied by significant uncertainty, as individuals are left to bear the weight of their decisions without sufficient social security. As a result, youth must constantly seek better options for their lives, leaving behind current situations as mere experiences and maintaining the guest mind to alleviate the pressures they face. Despite the flexibility this mindset offers, the experience orientation and guest mind do not resolve the underlying uncertainty. Instead, they perpetuate a cycle in which youth are always on a quest to find the ‘best’ option, unsure whether they will ever encounter it or whether it even exists.
Featured Image: The living room of Experimental House T. Source: Haoyuan Zhuang (CC).
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