Two Chinese Workers Get ¥2 Million Apartments as Year-End Bonuses

We know of one laoban in South China that deserves one of those ‘World’s Best Boss’ mugs.

Two employees at a company in Dongguan received new apartments – said to be worth around RMB2 million – as their year-end bonuses. The company not only purchased lake-view homes for the two workers, but also allotted money for furnishings (100-gallon turtle tanks should be a top priority, we’d imagine).

According to Zhong Mingyu, the company’s chairman of the board, the extravagant bonuses were determined more so by personal character rather than work performance. Some netizens have viewed the apartment rewards as a publicity stunt, while Zhong noted that the year-end gifts are part of a 10-year plan to help out employees going through a tough time. 

In an interview with Pear Video, Zhong said, “We’re giving the properties as a gift not as a way of demanding that workers reach a certain performance level. The main principle within our company is to view everyone as our own family, and to help every single person rid themselves of worry. This is our company’s corporate culture.”

News of the workers’ big bonuses spread like wildfire on social media, with nearly 200 million views on the trending hashtag #company year-end bonus gives out RMB2 million lake view apartments# (#公司年终奖发200万湖景房#).

Following the grand gesture, some people on Chinese social media have taken a liking to the company’s chairman (for obvious reasons). “To come across a good boss requires luck, if you don’t have a kind boss, you might work strenuously for a year, and in the end may not get paid for it,” wrote one Weibo user. Others expressed skepticism over the company’s ‘character over performance’ philosophy, with one user posting, “If they don’t look at performance, how can the company survive [long enough] to send out year-end bonuses?”

READ MORE: Chinese Tech Company Offers Night with Japanese Porn Star as Year-end Bonus

[Cover image: screengrab via Pear Video]