Hardships and tears behind China's booming food delivery service

A deliveryman makes his way down the road in Beijing on a snowy day. [Photo from the web]

Not an easy job

Zhou is a relative newcomer to the trade. He is called a "golden deliveryman".

In his company, deliverymen are graded based on the number of positive comments they receive from customers and they fall into seven tiers accordingly. Those at the top tier, who are called "divine deliverymen", have to receive 3,000 positive comments before obtaining that status.

Couriers' income is related with the number of orders they finish. For each order, a courier receives a fixed payment of one yuan (14 cents) and a bonus based on his tier.

Zhou associated the rating system with an online game he used to play.

"In the game, I gain experiences and go to a higher level by slaying the monster. As a deliveryman, I gain experiences by going around and sending food," Zhou said.

But the reality is always crueler than the game.

Food with soup is the last thing a courier likes to deliver. There is a saying in the trade: "If you have not sent a bowl of soup noodles to a place three kilometers away, you are not a real deliveryman."

Huang Yuanbin (not his real name) is one of Zhou's fellow couriers. One day, he received an order for three bowls of soup noodles. It was a rainy day in late November, and the freezing air whipped his face.

"Though the straight-line distance was three kilometers, it was actually four or five kilometers away," Huang said. He did not have time to be concerned about himself while braving the cold air, because he worried about getting to the customer's home before the soup noodles got cold.

Half an hour later, he arrived at the destination. To his relief, Huang found the noodles in the thermal box were still hot and the soup didn't spill. A woman who seemed to be in her 20s opened the door. When Huang handed the noodles over to her, she said nothing and slammed the door shut. Huang did not even have a chance to ask her to give him a positive comment.