Chinese overtime
- noun
:
horas extras no pagadas
- Management expected us to put in Chinese overtime to finish the project on schedule.
Examples
-
He was tired of the constant Chinese overtime and started looking for a new job.
-
We joked about earning nothing for all the Chinese overtime we did last month.
-
Many employees experience Chinese overtime without realizing it.
-
Is Chinese overtime common in your company?
-
Management expected us to put in Chinese overtime to finish the project on schedule.
-
He was tired of the constant Chinese overtime and started looking for a new job.
-
We joked about earning nothing for all the Chinese overtime we did last month.
Synonyms
20
2.7
Continuing after the planned time
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally analyzable as 'overtime' that is associated with China (Chinese + overtime), so a B1 learner would likely infer it refers to overtime in a Chinese context. However, the specific pragmatic nuance — that it denotes unpaid or routinely expected extra hours rather than simply extra paid hours — is culturally loaded and not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so full comprehension requires prior exposure.
Etymology
Chinese overtime may come from the image of workers who had to do constant overtime, staying late every day and getting 'no extra pay', so the extra hours felt like part of the job. That's why it now means 'working extra hours regularly without being paid extra'.