牛马

What does 牛马 mean?

牛马 is what many Chinese office workers call themselves when they feel treated like draft animals: overworked, underpaid and with little say over their own time. Variants include 城市牛马 ('urban beasts of burden') and 牛马人. It's close to 打工人, but darker and more sarcastic — 打工人 can sound upbeat, while 牛马 is pure gallows humor. It's mostly self-directed; calling someone else a 牛马 can come across as rude. English speakers might say 'wage slave' or 'corporate drone'.

Where does 牛马 come from?

Using 牛马 for people stuck in hard, thankless labor is an old expression in Chinese. Its popularity as office-worker self-mockery grew from around 2023 and peaked in 2024. Some sources credit a Bilibili creator who documented tough construction-site work with helping popularize it, but its rise was gradual and has no single clear origin.

How to use 牛马

• 周一了，牛马又要上工了。
  Zhōuyī le, niú mǎ yòu yào shàng gōng le.
  It's Monday — time for us workhorses to clock in again.
• 我们都是公司的牛马，谁也别笑谁。
  Wǒmen dōu shì gōngsī de niú mǎ, shéi yě bié xiào shéi.
  We're all just the company's beasts of burden, so nobody gets to laugh at anyone.