Shopping And More: Chinese Woman Rents Her Time To People To Do "Meaningful Things"

A woman in China's Beijing has developed a unique hobby of renting her time out to strangers to engage in "meaningful things" with them for only one yuan (approximately Rs 11), as per a report in the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Peggy, the 26-year-old, has been advertising her services on the Chinese social networking site Xiaohongshu since last month. She claims that she does this as she wants to "accompany people to do things they dare not do alone" in order to "feel alive."

Ms Peggy, who is an immigrant from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwest China, tried to work there after her graduation from Beijing but was not successful. She returned to Beijing in 2021 and started offering herself up for hire to random people in an effort to "find the meaning of life" after attempting a number of jobs that she didn't appreciate. Ms Peggy says that she is eager to "challenge herself" with the opportunity. 

As per the outlet, Ms Peggy has three customers notably- a "lonely" recent graduate who wants to go rock climbing, a "shy" programmer who wants to sell balloons in a park and a guy who wants to go to a McDonald's Children's Day event. The 26-year-old further claimed that in order for the service to be valuable to others, she did not accept orders from clients who only wanted to share a lunch with her.

According to SCMP, one customer had asked Ms Peggy to go shopping with her as she was not comfortable with how she looked and was fascinated by Ms Peggy's bold and "daring" dressing style. However, she was taken aback when she learnt that the woman had intended to wear a camisole when she used the word "daring," but the 26-year-old said, "I want to let her know we have the freedom to dress as we like and no one should be body shamed."

Ms Peggy stated that the one-yuan minimum fee she asks is merely to offer "a sense of ritual". However, it is to be noted that any costs incurred during her work hours are shared with the renter.