Thousands of college graduates turning back on city to help poor
Print Edition
LIU Hai is one of over 1,000 college graduates who have turned their back on a job and life in the city to help those living in poverty.
In 2014, Liu, 29, left the Beijing Institute of Technology after receiving his master’s degree and began working on poverty-relief work as a deputy secretary of the Youth League Committee in mountainous Nandan County.
“I had made up my mind in high school to work in China’s most remote and tough places and devote myself in their development,” said Liu who has now visited 151 villages in the county, including 47 in poverty.
There are over 1,000 college graduates, like Liu, in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, who received their education in universities in big cities but chose to work voluntarily in under-developed areas.
It has not been easy for them to gain villagers’ trust and fully understand their needs and Liu needed a translator at the beginning.
“The solution was clear. Experience the difficulties in real life and offer true help,” Liu said. “What we learned in school was mainly scientific thought and thinking patterns. We graduates need to be practical and understand where we can give full play to our ability. What we are doing here is maybe just small, but it matters to the locals. By gaining experience in handling small things, we can accomplish something big in the future.”
Liu says he never regrets turning down lucrative offers from international companies and state-owned enterprises after his graduation.
“I told my parents there was no coming back, and they did not understand my decision at that time,” he said. “Since I told my family about my life and work here, they have become quite supportive.”
Like Liu, Abulimit, 28, was another who chose not to work in Beijing after graduation in 2016. He returned to his hometown of Urumqi, capital of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where he felt needed and fulfilled.
Abulimit believes what he learned at university was gratitude, as he was exempted from tuition for his bachelor’s and master’s degree study. Now he is returning the favor.
He has worked as a Uygur translator in local government for over half a year. In February, he was sent to do a translation job in a village in Kashi City, where he also taught local farmers Mandarin.
“I like working in remote areas and doing what I can do for villagers. I feel happy for them when seeing their life improving,” Abulimit said, who is a son of an electric welder.
In 2017, the Chinese central government issued a guideline to encourage more graduates to work at the community level. They were encouraged to find employment in rural areas, tourism, rural e-commerce and rural cooperatives.
The guideline encouraged graduates to work in central and western parts of the country, northeast China and other less-developed and remote areas.
The government estimates about 7.95 million college students will graduate this year, making up over half of the newly-added urban labor force.
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