When Sun Zhan became a waiter, it was met with displeasure by his parents.
“My family’s opinion worries me a lot. After all, I studied for many years and went to a pretty good school,” he says.
He says his family is confused by his choice of job and would prefer him to try to become a civil servant or official, but, he adds, “it’s my choice.”
But he has a secret plan. He is going to use his time working as a waiter to learn the restaurant business so that he can eventually open his own restaurant.
He thinks that if he ends up running a successful business, the critics in his family will have to change their minds.
“The employment situation in mainland China is very, very difficult, so I think many young people have to adjust their expectations,” said Professor Zhang Jun of the City University of Hong Kong.
She says many students seek higher degrees to have better prospects, but then the real employment environment hits them.
“The job market has been very tough,” said Wu Dan, 29, who is currently interning at a sports massage clinic in Shanghai.
“Many of my classmates who graduated with a master’s degree are looking for a job for the first time, and very few of them end up finding one.”
She also did not think that she would receive a degree in finance from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology here.
Before that, she worked at a futures trading company in Shanghai, where she specialized in agricultural products.
When she returned to the mainland after finishing her studies in Hong Kong, she wanted to work for a private equity firm and received several offers, but the conditions did not satisfy her.
The fact that she didn’t accept any of them and went into sports medicine instead wasn’t welcomed by her family.
“They thought I had such a good job before and my education is quite competitive. They didn’t understand why I chose a low-barrier job that required me to do manual labor for little money.’
She admits she wouldn’t be able to survive in Shanghai on her current salary if it weren’t for the fact that her partner owns their house.
At first, she didn’t know anyone who supported her current career, but her mother followed after she had recently cured her ailing back, greatly reducing the pain she was experiencing.
Now the one-time finance student says she feels a life working in the investment world isn’t really for her.
She says she is interested in sports injuries, enjoys the work and wants to open her own clinic someday.
