Zhang Shuai has only taken one day off in the past two months. Every day he has been running around a residential quarter in eastern Beijing to make sure packages from around the country are delivered intact and on time.
Zhang, 23, is one of the country's hundreds of thousands of delivery men who just helped set a record in the booming e-commerce industry. According to figures from the State Post Bureau, some 540 million parcels and boxes were delivered in six days from Nov. 11 to 16 for Singles' Day, China's biggest online shopping holiday.
No matter where a package comes from, most are delivered by people like Zhang in the last mile before they reach their destinations. Zhang rides an electric tricycle fully loaded with parcels from a distribution center to the block where he works, hustling from one floor to another to deliver them.
Delivery companies need men like Zhang, especially at the end of the year, when online shoppers place online orders for the holiday season.
Young, diligent and ambitious to trade their labor for more income, they don't care about the freezing Beijing winter and demanding customers. Zhang does not have special windproof clothes to protect him as he rides, just a woolen hat and warm trousers.