30+ Hours Without Food, She Breaks Down! More Women in Debt in China, 100 Million in Default

I don't know how much longer I can go on. I haven't eaten in over 30 hours. I'm 33 and I owe more than 2.8 million yuan. I haven't had a good night's sleep in months. All I want right now is a bowl of noodles, but I can't even afford 10 or 20 yuan. It's hard to believe. I used to own two companies. At our peak, I had more than 200 employees, but in just one year, I lost everything. Nothing. Nothing was left. And I ended up owing 2.8 million yuan. The debt collection calls never stop. I really can't take it anymore. More women in China are going from running companies with over 200 employees to being unable to afford a bowl of noodles. Many were once successful, independent, and driven. Now they're trapped in debt and pushed to the breaking point. How long have you been here? It's been so long since I told anyone I can't keep going. I'm afraid to say it. I have elderly parents and children to support. Creditors won't listen to me cry. Banks won't extend my deadlines because I'm struggling. But today, I want to say it on camera. I can't keep going. My company closed. I sold my house. I owe millions of yuan. I went from living in a villa to selling things on the street. By March last year, I was already about 4 million yuan in debt. Only someone who's been through a fall like that can understand it. This entrepreneur once owned four companies. Just four years ago, she was full of confidence. Now she sells goods on the streets while owing 3.98 million yuan. I can't hold it in. I'm falling apart. I've dragged my parents into this, and it hurts so much. I feel like I'm the only one whose life has turned out this way. All I wanted was a family and a decent life. The woman says she trusted her husband and felt responsible for their marriage and family. She borrowed from wherever she could to support his business ambitions. When his business failed, she was left facing debts she could not escape. I'm going to use my own experience to control your love brain. Let's see who dares to have a love brain. After 10 years of marriage, I owe 1.27 million yuan, all because I borrowed money to support my husband's business. My advice is, don't take out loans for a husband. Even if he says he's starting a business for your family, tell him to work within his means. If he doesn't have the money, he shouldn't look to borrow through his wife. When the debts can't be paid, money problems poison the marriage. Couples start saying hurtful things, and when everything falls apart, each Each person looks out for themselves. He'll put himself first. This 33-year-old teacher borrowed more than 2 million yuan to support her husband's business. It failed, leaving her with over 2 million yuan in debt. Every month, as soon as her salary arrives, she starts working out how to make the payments. These accounts show how deeply debt is straining households across China. The number of people in debt is said to have reached 800 million, including 100 million who have fallen behind and become defaulters. Many are willing to repay. They simply have nothing left. A lot of families can't even come up with 1000 yuan right now. I'm not looking for sympathy and this isn't a joke. This is real. People say that no matter how hard things get, a family should still be able to find 1000 yuan. But the reality is most people are in this situation. A couple of days ago, a follower told me he was months behind on his mortgage. His monthly payment is 10,000 yuan. He also has other loans and living expenses. There's simply no money left to live on. Nearly 800 million people nationwide have debt. More than 100 million are behind on payments. And that number keeps growing. Most are just struggling to get through each day. Debt collectors call constantly. They also harass relatives and friends. People really can't pay. They're already under so much pressure they can barely breathe. A closer look at these women and families reveals a difficult reality. Their debts did not come from laziness, gambling, or luxury spending. Most are hardworking and ambitious. They wanted to improve their lives through their own efforts. Their debts largely come from two major traps, starting a business and buying a home. During the boom, entrepreneurship was promoted as the path to moving up in society and becoming financially independent. In a downturn, however, a failed business can quickly wipe out personal savings and family wealth. Born in 1995, Ma Linxin grew up in an urban village in Tianshui, Gansu province. Her story is a clear example. Her family was extremely poor, And she was determined to get ahead from an early age. Starting in middle school, she sold goods on holidays to help escape poverty. While attending college in Tianjin, she worked at an electronics factory, coffee shops, and clothing stores. She learned early to earn and save her own money. After college, she rejected her father's plans for her to return home, take civil service exams, and meet potential husbands. Instead, she chose to build a career in a big city. She spent 11 years in the highly competitive sales industry. In Chongqing, she visited 50 clients and made more than 200 calls a day, even in summer heat reaching 104 degrees Fahrenheit. During the housing boom, she became a top property sales agent, earning as much as 40,000 yuan a month. Her persistence made her the only salesperson in Chongqing to close the deal. But the confidence and pride she had built helped lead to her downfall. By August 2024, she had spent three or four years working with restaurants at Meituan, the food delivery platform. She believed she understood how the restaurant business worked. Against her parents' wishes, she decided to try her luck in Shenzhen. In September 2024, she pooled all her savings from 11 years in sales, the money her mother had set aside for her marriage, and loans from relatives and friends. She raised more than 2 million yuan and opened a Yunnan-style fermented tofu hotpot restaurant in Longhua, Shenzhen. It was the only restaurant of its kind in the city. She had little hands-on experience running a restaurant or managing suppliers. Following an online marketing trend, she offered vouchers worth 100 yuan for just 49 yuan. For more than 20 days after the promotion began, the restaurant was packed. Customers lined up from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Several exhausted employees quit. She worked until 2 or 3 a.m. every day. But the rush soon backfired. Food quality dropped, service couldn't keep up, and complaints poured in. She often locked herself inside the restaurant and broke down crying. Once the discount rush ended, customer numbers plunged. High rent, utilities, and payroll quickly drained her cash. By August 2025, less than a year after opening, the restaurant had closed. More than 2 million yuan in hard-earned money was gone. It had taken her 10 years to overcome her insecurity and 11 years of work to build her savings. In the end, she lost those savings, damaged her family ties and romantic relationship, and was left with nothing again. Her business failure may have stemmed from inexperience, but another family story shows an equally difficult outcome, after two generations of the family worked together for 11 years. In Fuyang, Anhui province, four family members worked together with clearly defined roles. The father-in-law, born in 1973, had run a clothing factory in Shenzhen. He returned home in 2012 to open a factory and manage orders. The mother-in-law, born in 1979, handled production and supplies. Their son, born in 1997, was skilled in pattern making, fabric cutting, and shipping. His wife, born in 1993, handled online sales and promotional writing. They worked toward the same goal and pooled everything they earned. Yet over 11 years, this ambitious family gradually fell into debt. In the end, all four were placed on a court blacklist for failing to meet their payment obligations. A normal family is not far from money if there is a manager. In an ordinary family, having even one ambitious person can bring debt close behind. Our family was different. We had four ambitious people, and we all ended up on the debt blacklist. In 2012, we saw people making money on Taobao, so we opened our first online store. Business boomed in 2013. We packed and shipped orders every day. In 2014, our store qualified for the Singles Day sales event. We had sold 500,000 yuan worth of goods in 2013 without being included. So this time, we bought 3 million yuan worth of goods on credit. Then, the platform completely changed how it directed shoppers. We sold just 30,000 yuan. We lost money on everything else. We still had to pay workers and keep the factory running. So all four of us took turns applying for loans whenever we could. We borrowed to repay earlier loans. Over the next 10 years, the family kept working harder and taking bigger risks. In 2016, they invested 180,000 yuan in rain canopies for electric scooters. Soon afterward, strict new rules barred scooters with canopies from the roads, wiping out their investment. In 2017, already deep in debt, they borrowed another 220,000 yuan to renovate the factory and pass an inspection needed to win a major export order. In 2018, they invested 400,000 yuan in insulated scooter covers. Their equipment was not specialized enough, and they couldn't match competitors' costs. In 2019, they opened a rural processing plant to cut labor costs and try to recover. Then the pandemic hit. Orders fell, goods went unsold, and payments failed to arrive. Rent and high interest charges stayed the same. By the end of 2022, they ran out of cash. Every family member, young and old, ended up on the court's debt blacklist. The family had spent their lives working hard and trying to get ahead, but they overlooked a crucial point. When market conditions turn against a business and borrowing is already high, failing to cut losses can make debt grow at an even faster pace. As traditional businesses struggle, investment scams are also targeting middle-class women trying to protect their wealth or find a new source of income. I just ran into my classmate. I'm 32 and I owe 6 million yuan. I don't know if I'll ever recover. I'm exhausted and the mental pressure is so intense I can barely breathe. I am a victim who was cheated by a friend for 15 million yuan for two years. A friend cheated me out of 15 million yuan in two years. These past few days, I've been sorting through the scammer's transaction records to work out exactly how much I lost. I transferred money into more than 30 accounts, so going through it all takes a lot of time and energy. Over two years, I sent him more than 60 million yuan. He used my later payments to pay me supposed returns. He spent the money at bars. I was told a single bottle he drank in one day cost at least 3,000 yuan. My husband and I spend less on living expenses in a month than he spent on one bottle in a day. And I was still foolishly telling him, we have to protect the principal. Don't put it into anything unreliable. I really feel so foolish. Many victims are aware of investment risks, but scammers exploited fears about falling asset values and the weak economy. They promised high returns and safe investments in real businesses, with the principal protected. These schemes could run for years. Small early payments persuaded victims to invest more. Some even borrowed from banks, relatives, and friends, hoping the returns would exceed the interest. In the end, families lost millions or even tens of millions of yuan. Business and investment failures have hit people willing to take risks. The housing crash has reached much further, draining the lifetime savings and future incomes of an entire generation. For 20 years, home ownership was promoted as a way to move up in the world. Now that boom has ended, heavy mortgage payments burden hundreds of millions of households. If I don't buy this gold and silver soil, I can travel abroad now, eat delicious food and drink spicy food. If I hadn't bought this concrete box, I could travel abroad and enjoy good food and drinks. Since buying it, I'm afraid to spend money on food. I can't even afford to have a child. I paid 800,000 yuan for it. Now it's worth just over 200,000 yuan. I've lost more than 500,000 yuan. I've paid the mortgage for over 10 years. It feels like all those years of work were for nothing. I still have a mortgage of three million on my house in Shanghai. I still owe 3 million yuan on my mortgage in Shanghai. But my home would only sell for 2 million yuan now. I can't see a way out of this. In 2015 my husband took out a 480,000 yuan 30-year mortgage in 2015. The monthly payment was 2,000 yuan. We worked hard and paid for 11 years. Over 132 months, we paid 260,000 yuan. Then I checked and found that 140,000 yuan had gone toward interest alone. I was stunned. It felt like we spent 11 years working for the bank. I bought this Vanke home in 2018 for 3 million yuan with a 2.1 million yuan mortgage. Now it's worth just 1.32 million yuan, but I still owe 1.8 million yuan. If I sell now, counting the down payment and the interest I've paid, I've still lost 1.68 million yuan. I wish I just stayed out of it. I regret buying this home. These accounts reveal the hardship facing people who bought homes near the top of the market. From major cities to smaller towns, sharp price declines have left many homeowners owing more than their homes are worth. A property in Foshan buffered 2.2 million yuan at the 2021 peak, fell to 1.5 million yuan within a few years. The paper loss erased the equivalent of years Years of careful saving. One young woman saved nearly 1 million yuan over the course of eight years. She put nearly all of it into a home. After struggling with high monthly payments for four years, she sold at a loss. Her entire down payment and savings were gone. The problem becomes even worse when a home is worth less than the outstanding loan. Selling at a loss or losing the property at a foreclosure auction after missed payments may still leave money owed to the bank. Buyers can lose their homes while facing the remaining debt and a court blacklist for the rest of their lives. In effect, the system cashes in on 30 years of a person's future labor. During the first decade or more of repayment, most of the money goes towards interest. People become afraid to take time off, get sick, or lose their jobs. They spend their prime working years paying for a home that keeps losing value. A pay cut or job loss in middle age can suddenly make those monthly payments impossible to bear. Instead of protecting wealth, the property drains the family's available cash, leaving a generation struggling with poverty and fear. The struggles of entrepreneurs and other ambitious workers also reflect the wider economy. China has entered what many economists call the garbage time, borrowing a sports term for a game whose outcome is already settled. Growth across the economy is slowing, investment returns keep plunging, and overall demand is shrinking sharply. Meanwhile, businesses are locked in increasingly destructive competition. In these conditions, familiar ways of running a business and building Building wealth no longer work. Profits are disappearing across industries. Ordinary people face greater barriers to earning money, with less room than ever to make a living. Everyone should tighten their belts and live frugally. Everyone needs to tighten their belts. I've spent the past few months traveling around the country, looking at different business opportunities. My conclusion is that staying out and avoiding new investments can preserve some money. Getting involved now will probably mean losing everything. In the second half of this year, the economy has felt like it's fallen off a cliff. Coffee shops that used to sell dozens of cups now sell only a few. Tourist sites have no visitors. Clothes aren't selling. Restaurants have no customers. Guest houses and tourism businesses are doing terribly. That sharp slowdown is spreading through entire supply chains. From street food to technology hardware, businesses are slashing prices. Online shopping platforms force sellers to compete on price, pushing products down to 9.9 yuan or even 2.9 yuan. Sellers lose money on every order. Large companies use their financial strength to squeeze out smaller ones that can't compete. Even independent online content creation, once relatively easy to enter, now brings in only a few hundred yuan a month. as clients cut their budgets to zero. Meanwhile, business owners still face daily bills for rent, utilities, wages, and bank interest. They cut staff to preserve cash, but service worsens and customers leave, bringing closure closer. Chains of unpaid bills make matters worse across industries. Freelance work and final project payments can go unpaid for years. If a business partner goes bankrupt, the creditor may recover nothing. Strategies built on borrowing to expand and spending heavily on subsidies no longer work. Breakfast shops open and close in succession. Low-income families stop eating out to save money. Businesses and customers pull one another down as cash dries up across the market. Looking back over the past 10 or 15 years, a striking pattern emerges. Many who worked hardest and borrowed most aggressively to get ahead are now deeply in debt. Others who seemed less ambitious returned to their hometowns and settled into public sector jobs now live comfortably and securely. If you work too hard, you will owe a debt. When I graduated in 2005, a college classmate from Chongqing decided to go back home and build his life there. We knew his family had no special connections. We found his decision strange. Shanghai had so many opportunities, and everyone was doing whatever they could to stay. But he was determined to leave. He said, I've come out and seen the world. That's enough. My father told me each generation should lay some groundwork for the next. No single generation needs to push too hard. If we try to do everything ourselves, there may be nothing Nothing left for our children to build on. At the time, I thought that made no sense. After going home, he used connections to get a job at a school. He couldn't teach at first, but he could do administrative work. While working, he earned a master's degree, then a doctorate. Eventually, he became an associate professor at a college. Now his family lives quite well without having pushed themselves that hard. The vlogger contrasted that with classmates who stayed in Shanghai and worked relentlessly. Those who missed the prime home buying years of 2006 to 2008 may now earn nearly 20,000 yuan a month, yet still pay 5,000 to 6,000 yuan in rent for cramped apartments. Education expenses and high living costs leave them exhausted and anxious. Those who borrow to buy later at higher prices face a different struggle, keeping up with large mortgage payments. This helps explain why some of the most ambitious people have suffered the most. During economic expansion, borrowing could help people get ahead as the overall economy grew. Now, with the market shrinking and total losses mounting, Pushing ahead blindly can make the damage worse. Many mistook the benefits of more than a decade of easy credit for personal ability. They borrowed too optimistically to start businesses or buy homes, betting limited cash flow on rising asset prices. Those who took the most pride in their ambition often found failure hardest to accept. Unwilling to walk away from money already spent, they kept borrowing to cover earlier debts, eventually trapping the whole family. Seen in this light, the growing trend among young people in China to lie flat or stop striving can be understood as a way to protect themselves during severe economic uncertainty. In the film Don't Look Up, a giant comet is about to strike Earth, and disaster can no longer be avoided. The main characters choose to sit quietly around a table and share dinner. Their decision reflects a clear understanding of what they can no longer change and a sense of acceptance. As asset bubbles unwind and the rules of business change under a prolonged downturn, avoiding risky ventures, holding off on investments, resisting pressure to buy a home, and protecting cash flow offer a defense against risk. Keeping the family healthy and living a modest life may be the most valuable outcome of all.