A recent video by the Rainbow Chamber Singers hit the Internet, gaining more than 30 million views on Weibo since its release last week, and bringing office workers to tears of laughter.

It seems like a typical concert with a group of men and women in black suits and dresses - until you see the hairbands of dog ears, and the conductor's paws.

As they start to sing, the solemnity of their harmony is matched by the biting commentary of the lyrics. And, animal noises punctuate the performance.

The song, "So Far, the Sofa Is So Far," depicts the daily life of Beijing office workers forced to work overtime, which in China is often unpaid.

Rainbow Chamber Singers perform their latest hit "So Far, the Sofa Is So Far."

"There is a boss called David, who appears at 6 pm, with piercing eyes like a German Shepherd. With a cup of hot coffee, he said, 'let's have a meeting.'"

Though the employee feels "hollowed out and exhausted like a dog," he still manages to utter, "I am not tired, not tired ... I do not need to sleep," as if brainwashed.

The song was an immediate hit, resonating most with viewers in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, the cities with the most white-collar workers. Many of them left comments saying that the song exactly expresses their struggles.

The line "I haven't washed my makeup for 18 days and I wear my monthly lenses for two and a half years" couldn't have been a better portrayal of the young people facing the pressures of managing money, finding a job and working overtime.

Jin Chengzhi, the choir's conductor, told the Global Times that he got the idea after seeing a friend's social media post saying, "I feel like my body is hollowed out."

He said it gave him an image of a man collapsed, totally exhausted. You are right in the office, facing your boss, but in the background is the seaside, with flying seagulls, jumping dolphins and waves, Jin said.

Jin Chengzhi (front) poses with the choir's other members. Photos: Courtesy of Rainbow Chamber Singers and Jin Hai

He said that through this work he wanted to help people ease their stress and expect more from life.

"I don't encourage people to quit their job. Work itself is a choice. If you want to achieve yourself and pursue your goals, you have to work hard. If you take another road, you have to sacrifice in other aspects. It's not a relationship between the moon and sixpence," referring to W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence, about a stockbroker who abandons his life to be an artist.

"I hope this song can shed light on every man who is working to make ends meet. I hope we can tell each other through music that you are not alone. So that we can face an even bigger challenge tomorrow hand-in-hand. It makes you smile when you first hear it, makes you cry for the second time and brings you courage for the third time," Jin said.

The Rainbow Chamber Singers is an amateur choir founded in 2010 by Jin and his classmates, who was then a junior at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

They give concerts every year, performing from a large repertoire of standards, and occasionally ending with a piece like "So Far."

When Jin was near graduation, in 2012, was a crucial point for the choir.

"I was feeling low at that time. Faced with the choice of studying abroad or continuing at home, I thought about disbanding the choir. But I scratched that, because Rainbow is like my family. It would hurt to let the choir go. So we held on and kept rehearsing," Jin said.

Their first hit song, "Where On Earth Did You Leave the Key, Zhang Shichao?" garnered the choir incredible feedback, becoming an online sensation earlier this year.

The song relates Jin's frustration with his former classmate Zhang Shichao, who forgets to leave their room key behind before going on a date.

"Since the release of the song on our January concert, we have been getting more applicants, which means we have more choice in selecting members. There has also been a rise in public attention and audience attendance. It took us 15 days to sell out last time, but this time all tickets were booked within 43 minutes," Jin said.

Now the choir has more than 40 members, all diverse and elites in each's own field. They rehearse once a week, venting the pressures of life through music.

"The most fun is knowing different people with different backgrounds and interests. We have members of all different personalities in this big family. We are a group of people who are extremely earnest in rehearsing and extremely outgoing in private. We may watch Indian movies and chant Indian songs," Jin said.

The choir is also strict about practice. Members who miss half of rehearsals would be expelled. Each year there is a recruitment that emphasizes the applicant's familiarity with musical score, vocal talent and knowledge of foreign languages.

Jin is often lauded as giving a new face to choral music noted for propaganda or "red songs" by mixing high art and mass culture.

He embraces the compliment, saying that he thinks of choir as a platform on which he can try different music forms.

"To me, classical music is trendy pop music, and that's where people find its value. Take my own work as an example: there are many serious works as well as many interesting works. I am not the one making the choices. It's the audience," Jin said.

"Entertaining work spreads more quickly, often thanks to commercial circulation. Serious work requires more time," said Jin.

On the business side, the choir is breaking even, said member Ye Chengbo, who runs daily operations.

"Most of our members are amateurs, which means we can't compete with professional choirs in theaters. Our core competitiveness is our originality. The Rainbow Chamber Singers is a young choir. We create original music, which allows us to have more variation in musical forms. We hope this force of originality can push greater energy and reach more people through commercial cooperation," Ye said.

He added that before releasing their quirkier songs, they map out a detailed marketing program, such as inviting Kong Hong singer Leon Lai to record a line for the song "So Far, the Sofa Is So Far."

"We want to express the idea of working until dawn, and we immediately thought of Leon Lai , whose Chinese name means dawn. We used everything we had to invite him, and Leon was impressed, and agreed to record for us," Ye said.

He said that in the future they will speed up the release of their songs on the Internet.