Young Chinese are hiring freelance life stand-ins for tasks like hospital visits, queuing, and security footage reviews, raising questions on convenience and privacy.
Tags:Too Busy to Live? Young Chinese Are Hiring “Life Stand-ins”
Need someone to drink your milk tea, visit a patient, queue for you or spend five hours watching security footage?
In China, there may now be someone willing to do it—for a fee.
A growing group of freelance service providers are calling themselves “life stand-ins” (生活替身). Unlike an ordinary courier, they do not simply carry an item from one place to another. They temporarily step into a small part of someone else’s life.
RMB 50 to visit a stranger in hospital
A recent report by Tide News described a woman in Shaoxing who received an unusual order: visit a hospital patient she had never met.
The gifts had already been delivered to the hospital. She collected the milk and thermos, carried them into the ward, checked the patient’s details, took a photo as proof and offered a few words of encouragement.
Her fee was RMB 50.
The same woman, identified only by her surname Jin, runs a wall-covering business and began taking private errands in her spare time. In two months, she completed more than 30 jobs and earned around RMB 2,000 a month in extra income.
One customer paid her RMB 300 to watch five hours of security footage after losing an item. Another paid RMB 100 to have a wedding gift wrapped.
A service provider discusses an order to review hours of security footage. Screenshot via Tide News.
Someone even paid a stranger to drink their milk tea
One customer in Guangdong wanted a city-exclusive fridge magnet offered with a drink that was unavailable locally.
The solution was wonderfully strange: the customer ordered the milk tea for someone in Hangzhou, who drank it and mailed the free magnet back. With postage included, the “drinking service” cost around RMB 30.
A social-media post seeking someone to drink a promotional milk tea and send back the collectible. Screenshot via Tide News.
Other services are more familiar: waiting in line, cooking at home, accompanying patients, collecting documents, feeding pets or helping people complete tasks in online games.
According to public data cited in the report, service orders on Xianyu rose 87% over the previous year, while “errands and agency services” became one of the platform’s most popular service categories.
Shanghai already has full-time “stand-ins”
An earlier Xinhua Finance report followed a Shanghai service provider who had been doing private errands full-time for three years.
His day could begin by collecting a passport at the exit-entry office on Minsheng Road, followed by driving a client’s car to Hongqiao Airport.
His prices varied with the task: spending a day accompanying someone could cost RMB 500, decorating a birthday room RMB 1,000, while document collection and driving services generally ranged from RMB 200 to RMB 600.
Some providers also offer home cooking or visits to elderly people. A two-hour visit may cost RMB 100–200, while regular monthly visits can exceed RMB 2,000.
This is where the idea becomes more controversial. Paying someone to queue feels practical. Paying someone to visit a relative can feel like outsourcing a relationship.
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Convenience—or outsourcing life itself?
Supporters see the trend as a sensible response to long working hours, distance and rising time costs. If a stranger can handle a five-hour queue, the customer gets those hours back.
But the more personal the task becomes, the less clear the boundary is.
Many providers work independently, without standard prices, formal training or written contracts. Entering a home, handling identity documents, accompanying a patient or caring for an elderly person can involve privacy, safety and responsibility that ordinary delivery services do not face.
The original report posed a question that has driven much of the online discussion: when people can pay to avoid more and more parts of daily life, are they buying freedom—or slowly giving up the experience of living it?
Sources: 潮新闻、中国青年网
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