I've been in China, they really work lots of hours but don't have western world work-intensity and stress. That's at least what I've seen in a couple of factories and commercial centers.

Yes we love facetime (solidarity or something). Personally don't get it. Think our poll on HK a while back proved that few of us are really effective more than 5 hrs a day. That said in China we have to be in the office which means you can't work on your own thing without feeling compromised, so weekends it is.

Does the work ethic and intensity follow the western world in the technical fields like startups? Or are long hours and cheap labor only for factories?

Even migrant factory workers are well paid compared to what they would make at home in the interior. They would actually complain if you cut hours because they would earn less (assuming no other company does the same and let wages go up).

Not to make light of their situation, but I imagine it wouldn't be so unbearable if one worked at Google and is highly compensated, and still had to work on their start up on the side. The crux of the problem is dissatisfaction of the day job, not the amount of work hours.

Generally migrant workers know that they can save money and live better, relatively. Whereas in a dead end day job you know your situation doesn't improve, even if it is in absolute terms better than a migrant's life.

We're made to look forward to something better.

Can only speak for my own experience. Everyone works long hours but this is the default culture and people are happy to.

Unless you have a startup in which case it makes the balance difficult. We have offices in 40 countries and measured that China/HK work the longest. (Well over the 10k sample size to make it relevant and excluding factory workers.)