A Chinese medical doctor with a PhD has left a prestigious hospital career to work as a food-delivery rider, breakfast seller and pub singer, choosing a flexible freelance life after years spent pursuing academic and professional achievement.
Liu Zihan, 31, resigned from her full-time position in February after working as a psychiatrist and postdoctoral researcher at a Grade 3A hospital in Zhuhai, in southern China’s Guangdong province. Grade 3A hospitals occupy the highest and most prestigious tier of China’s national healthcare classification system.
For Liu, the decision marked a sharp departure from the path she had followed for most of her life. She described her first 30 years as “meritocratic”, having grown up in Hebei, one of China’s most competitive provinces, and spent a year at Hengshui High School, known for its military-style discipline. She later entered the medical school at Sichuan University and obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Macau’s Faculty of Health Sciences.
By 2022, at the age of 27, Liu had completed her PhD and secured a position at the Zhuhai hospital. She received positive feedback from patients, including thank-you letters and gratitude pennants, and said she particularly valued communicating with patients without judging them according to their identities or social status.
“I prefer genuine communication between hearts,” she said.
But Liu increasingly struggled with the rigid routines of conventional employment. It took her two years to decide to leave, despite recognising that her qualifications could provide her with a respected career and good income.
After resigning, Liu travelled before taking on a succession of jobs, including selling breakfast and performing at a pub. She also began delivering food and continues to work part-time as a therapist. Through these jobs, she developed friendships with people running restaurants, pubs and food stalls, occupations often regarded as less prestigious than professional careers.
Liu said she found among them qualities that had been less visible in her previous working life: “optimism, resilience, and chill”. Their experiences encouraged her to adopt a more spontaneous approach to work and daily life, without planning each day in advance or calculating her monthly income.
She has also been struck by the mutual support among people working in the gig economy. “Delivery riders share traffic updates, and pub singers and stall owners look out for each other,” she said. “In comparison to grades and competition, there are far more significant values, like care and support.”
Liu believes the pressure she experienced in her former career, along with anxiety about choosing an unconventional path, is shared by many young people. Her current lifestyle allows her to continue practising medicine on a part-time basis while exploring interests outside the profession.
Her parents remain puzzled by the decision. They are proud of their daughter’s doctoral qualification and medical career, but have gradually become more accepting after she explained that she sees many new experiences ahead of her.
Liu now hopes to hold a concert, adapt her life journey into a film and eventually have a small yard where her cat can roam freely.
