You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly.
Today with Jingyu and Yuxuan.
Coming up, think DIY saves you money?
Think again.
The bill for doing it yourself is coming due, and it's counting us more in time, tools and cold hard cash than just buying it outright.
Is the DIY dream over?
After that, in the contemporary workplace, a peculiar social paradox has emerged.
Employees feel profound guilt for utilizing the very benefits that their employment contracts guarantee.
This phenomenon is called day-off shame, and it describes the acute discomfort and self-reproach associated with taking legitimate time off.
Why do office workers feel like this and what... can we do about it?
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And now...
From homemade cakes and hand-poured candles to self-assembled furniture and fix-it-yourself fashion, the DIY movement has long been seen as a clever, creative and budget-friendly way to live.
It's the promise of saving money while expressing personality.
It's a win-win.
But lately more and more young people are realizing that doing it yourself might actually mean spending more on tools and materials and time and even frustration.
In China and beyond.
Social media is filled with people sharing receipts that show their DIY projects and how they cost two or three times more than just buying the finished products from the store.
So how did this happen?
We'll get into the DIY boom in China and find out exactly what's going on.
And it's true.
It's cities all across China where this DIY trend has really kind of taken over in social media and beyond.
Yeah.
And what I feel is that young people, they are into DIYs.
And because They are sharing their DIY process and products on social media and short video platforms.
This trend has been amplified.
It feels like DIYs are everywhere.
And what surprised me is that young people, they're making their own clothes and incense, jewelry and even traditional thangka, which means Tibetan Buddhist paintings by themselves.
So that really surprised me.
And the original intention was, like Steve said, is to save money instead of buying these finished products.
But the outcome is that...
They sometimes might spend more, but I think it has now become a statement of creativity and self-expression and individuality for them.
It has become a real lifestyle for these young generations.
But then that's a surprise, isn't it?
Because it's associated with the term DIY.
It's just an immediate connection.
Oh, that must mean saving money too.
When you yes, originally people have the idea when they want to do diy and they started doing diy, but then, when you were buying all of the raw materials and machines, thinking thinking about you know all of, when you're buying finished products, all of the uh factories.
They produce these things through huge amount of raw materials and very sophisticated machines.
Automated machines.
Yes.
And they can split their cost into huge amount of product numbers.
Yeah.
But when you are doing it yourself.
You are the factory.
Yes.
You're paying for everything that you buy.
And maybe you produced maybe, let's say, three or five lip balms.
Are you really going to use all of them?
And not just three to five.
It's 30 to 50 lip balms you make.
Have you made one?
No, no, no.
I just saw a post by... a netizen, that she shared making these lip balms by herself.
But because the amount of ingredients you bought online, even though it's 50 yuan, it's very cheap.
But still, because the lip balm is very small and...
With the amount of ingredients, you can make 30 to 50 lip balms.
They can last for not just this winter.
30 to 50 years.
Of winters.
One complaint that people have online is about the DIY drinks.
Beverages.
Yeah, that people are making at home.
You know what?
I once tried... making one beverage because I had a pistachio latte in a cafe.
Pistachio is a nut that can make you happy.
So I had that latte in a cafe and I was really impressed.
I wanted to replicate that latte and I searched online and there are really a lot of tutorials to guide you how to make one.
And then I bought a pistachio jam and also oat milk, and also coffee, and then I reproduced one.
And didn't taste the same.
It never works.
And you watch, you watch these tutorials online and they make it look so incredibly easy and then you try it yourself and you fail and you feel so stupid because of how easy it actually looked.
But back back to the drinks things um, like homemade juices.
People are doing that a lot at home, but they're realizing that the cost adds up really quickly.
Yeah, people starting to buy juicers, coffee machines, ice makers would like to make some beverages that they can buy from these boba stores.
And then they realize that when they're buying all of these machines, first of all they can be quite expensive or expensive.
They can buy maybe 10 bottles of beverages already.
And then you need to buy all of the raw materials, let's say fruit, coffee, beans, and everything.
Add it up, they can cost from a couple of hundred yuan to over 1,000 yuan.
That's more than $140.
You have a juicer, don't you?
I do have a juicer.
I also bought it thinking i'd made fresh juice uh, just like these, uh like um juice stores that sell me.
But ever since i got it, i've completely regretted it, because almost everything that i juice turns out awful.
Oh really.
They're like too sweet or too way too sour, And now it's basically just my food shredder, I would say.
I shred everything and put it into things.
I bought a juicer a long time ago with the same thought that everybody has.
Oh, my gosh, I'm going to make all these healthy juices and I'm going to be insanely healthy.
And then I bought some orange.
It turns out insanely unhealthy.
Well, it depends.
It depends.
So what I made, I only used it once, by the way.
And what I made, I found a recipe for carrot ginger orange juice.
Which is delicious, by the way.
It really, really is.
But I bought the machine, which was quite expensive.
Then I went to the store and I bought six oranges because I thought that's enough.
And I bought a carrot and a thing of ginger.
Well, I didn't realize that six oranges is not even close to enough to make.
I wanted to make a liter of this juice.
I ended up using like 28 oranges or something and a few carrots, and then the machine.
So that was all labor intensive.
And then the machine, the juicer itself um, you take it apart because all you have to wash it afterwards yeah, and then it has about 50 parts to it that you have to disassemble to wash individually.
I got mad and i never used it again.
But the juice was delicious, i must admit.
But i'd rather just uh, save my, save my time the, the uh, the effort and the time and the the cost.
And that's what people are complaining about too, because it's not just money these days, it's the time, and that includes making clothes at home.
Yeah yeah, making clothes.
I mean you have to have this sewing machine, Even though some I mean those who are skilled in making clothes they can save up to like 800 yuan to make a 200-cost dress, just like the one which sells at a thousand yuan at the store.
You can save some money, but for those who aren't skilled, you have to buy a lot of fabrics, the machine, any to any tools and equipment, and then you find um, a lot of failures going on and you feel distressed, maybe.
Yeah,
And then if it's clothes making and you mess up, then a bunch of that fabric you probably have to throw away.
So you've wasted money there, too.
So then how can we do it properly?
Because DIY projects are not terrible.
They're really fun.
They're an opportunity to learn.
They can become hobbies for people.
But how can we do it so that it's still making us happy?
Start trying by small steps, I would say.
Many DIY fails or overspending happen when people go too big too soon, maybe for a liter of orange juice.
Don't use me as an example, although it is a perfect example, I must say.
Instead of buying a full set of tools or a fancy blender juicer, start with one project using what you already have.
If you enjoy this and see results, then invest gradually and maybe more.
And then maybe you can make more.
And then not only saving money, but also make money out of it.
Maybe.
And also, I think for many young people, they do DIYs not because...
They want to save money, but oftentimes they gain this type of accomplishment and also reward after finishing that, the thing that you do.
But all of our social media, we can see a lot of free tutorials, but sometimes they also come up with, you know, buying this gadget, buying that equipment, like these consumption links with that video.
So when we watch that type of videos, we should be really rational.
Don't fall into that hole of consumption and to buy more and more.
Yeah, right.
So it starts out with one purchase, but quickly becomes five or six or seven purchases.
Which is part of the problem too, because you know people want to escape consumer fatigue, which is why they get into DIY projects.
But then, ironically, I suppose it could lead to more purchases in the future.
Developed into a new hobby that it can spend more on.
Yeah, exactly.
Which is the ironic part of the whole thing.
Anyway, there you go.
There's your advice if you're getting into DIY projects yourself.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve today with Yushun and Jingyu.
Stay with us.
When we come back, we're talking about the unfortunate term, day off shame.
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You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve with Xinyu and Yuxin.
A troubling norm persists in modern work culture.
Employees apologizing almost for using their allotted time off.
It's called day off shame.
There's a Chinese term for it as well.
And we're going to see if we can find a solution to feeling like this.
It was a buzzword back in 2023, but it's making a comeback in the lives of young professionals these days.
Day off shame in English.
What is the Chinese term for it?
请假羞耻
Seems like you're very familiar with that term.
You feel shameful when you ask him for a day off.
So what does it mean?
What does it imply then?
I mean, do you ever have that kind of feeling, when you feel kind of guilty or hesitated or anxious when you need to ask for a day off?
One day off?
It's so mean.
Or several days off?
That's what you call 请假休止 or day off shame.
That's when you have a...
Like you have that kind of all of these ideas when you have a perfectly valid reason to rest.
And it has been the buzzword on Chinese social media like Weibo back in 2023.
And it aroused huge, huge discussion.
1.2 million respondents said they feel anxious whenever they request a leave.
And more than 7,000 people say no.
They ask for a leave freely whenever needed.
Yeah, but look at those statistics right there.
This was a social media poll, by the way, from 2023.
1.2 million people said, I feel anxious when I request a day off.
7,000 said, no, I don't feel anxious at all.
That is a huge discrepancy in the numbers there.
And I can totally resonate with this because I am one of those 1.2 million.
I feel really anxious and ashamed of asking for a sick day, for instance, even though I am, let's say, have a headache or I don't feel quite well.
But I don't have this courage, or I feel like I am not working that hard.
You know to ask for my employer for a day off, so you shouldn't you feel like this too?
Yeah, i also feel some anxiety when i take my uh time off, mostly because i worry that my boss might think i'm not doing enough right or that my absence may mean my colleagues have to cover for me.
They have do more because i was not there and even though i still take the time off um, I can't help hesitating.
So it's not that you're not taking the day off.
It's just you feel kind of bad about it.
Yeah.
And what they found was that 70 of respondents who did not take all of their annual leave in 2024.
That number increased from the year before.
And also 60% of those who didn't take it actively chose to forego it.
And that's also an increase. from the year before.
And this isn't a Chinese culture thing, because you see something similar in America.
There was an article from The Conversation from earlier this year.
88 of full-time private sector American workers receive paid time off.
But they did a survey a Pew survey in 2024, and they found that nearly half don't take all of their allotted vacation days.
About one in five employees report vacation guilt influencing whether they'll take it and, if they do, how long they'll actually take it as well.
That was one survey.
I found this from the New York Post from April of this year.
Another survey conducted by YouGov.
They did this on behalf of an iced tea company, which is weird, but whatever.
It revealed that 58% of millennials in America do not take a day off without feeling bad about it.
It's the same thing.
What's going on?
Why are people feeling like this?
I think first of all, it's the fear of leadership disapproval.
So many people.
They worry their superior or their employer will think less of you and it will affect the performance reviews or the chances of your promotion.
And maybe sometimes you feel you're being just as lazy or uncommitted or less invested because you're taking a sick day off.
And you might be seen as not working that hard enough.
And you don't want people to think you can't cope with the job.
So that's some of the worries behind this mindset.
And also psychologists note that pressure is a survival mechanism, because many treat being at work as essential to their career and also social survival.
So missing work, even for legitimate reasons, can trigger stress about falling behind or being less valued than colleagues.
So I think a lot of them is about one person's sense of responsibility, because they think they are responsible to their part of job.
So they may think that OK, if I'm not doing enough or I'm asking for a day off, I am not doing enough.
Okay.
Let me ask you this question then.
Both of you said you feel that anxiety if you're going to ask for a day off.
If your co-worker asks for a day off, do you judge them at all?
No.
No.
But I have to do his or her work.
So that's why I don't want a day off because I don't want to inflict that trouble to others.
So you do feel some small part annoyed When your co-worker takes a day off.
I didn't say I am annoyed.
Well, you have to do their work.
You can't be happy about that.
Sometimes I am troubled.
Troubled.
By a little bit of extra work.
I wouldn't feel too much about it because I have that certain amount of time to work.
I have to do my job, maybe their job.
But I have that much amount of time, and that's the workload that I can do.
So I wouldn't say that, okay, I have to cover you up, then I am working extra.
This is just the daily schedule I'll have.
So I wouldn't say...
You are not troubled.
I guess it depends on the job.
Sometimes it might make a big difference to miss one of your team members for a day, but in other cases maybe not so much.
There are some downsides to this, to feeling like this, though.
And one of those is self-punishment, right?
You feel like, oh, I'm letting everyone down because I'm not there that day.
But perhaps ironically...
There's a bit of, do you agree?
There's a bit of arrogance there, I feel like.
Oh, if I'm not here, what will they do without me?
See, I don't feel like this.
I don't feel this anxiety or guilt at all.
If I'm taking a day off, and I'm not talking about vacation days.
I'm just talking about if I don't feel well on a particular day.
I just say I'm going to be out today.
And I don't feel bad about that.
And part of the reason I don't feel bad is because I know My absence is not going to make a tremendous difference to the team on that one particular day.
But I remember you took a few sick leave a couple of months ago.
No, it was last year.
You actually apologized for not contributing contributing a lot.
I'll tell you the truth.
That's because i was new in china at the time.
And do you know what?
During my interview process, one of the things i bragged about was i never get sick, i don't miss days, because in seoul i had my show for 13 years.
Do you know how many days i missed?
Four, four days in 13 years.
And then, after i moved to china, a month later, i get sick And I had to miss work.
Now, when I lied to you, Yushan and yes, I did when I said I felt sorry, it was because I was unfamiliar with Chinese office culture at the time.
And I thought, like, oh, I have to say that I deeply regret my absence or something.
But the truth was, like, no, I don't feel bad about it.
And I don't think.
My point is I don't think anybody should feel bad about taking the time off, because that time off is.
Your time off.
It's in your contract that you are allowed to use that time for you.
Yeah.
But even though you said that you also just took four days off during your 30 year career back in South Korea, I think it's because we have such contracts colleagues like steve, you know, who don't take any sick day leaves in the office so we feel a little bit pressured and we have we have yeah, definitely have this kind of pressure not to take a sick day.
Maybe you see the examples from your co-workers right yes, and that become a cultural norm.
I'm not talking about me, but that little society with that exists within your team, not even within your company, right?
Quick advice Yushin, on what people can do so they can do this guilt-free.
Shift your mindset just like what Steve do, all right?
And I would say, in this kind of case, you need to think that, of course, the planet will still yeah, go without anybody.
The world will continue to function yeah so um, i think in that way maybe you will feel better.
Yeah um, if you do need a day off from time to time, you deserve that day off.
Take it, charge your batteries and then come back stronger the next day.
That's what i say, And that'll do it for today's roundtable.
Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.
For Yushan and Jingyu, thank you to both of them.
And thank you to you as well.
I'm Steve, and we hope that you come back again next time.
