Stories

1,300 Graduate Students Compete to Sell Pork

by on Saturday, December 13, 2008 25 comments comments

A Chinese graduate with a master's degree sells pork.

From Sina, “1,300 Graduate Students Compete to Sell Pork, Who Should be Ashamed?”:

Summary: The financial crisis makes it hard to find a job. People used to be shocked if “a good student at Beijing University sold pork.” However, more and more college graduates accept this reality now.

Recently, there was a pork retail chain store in Guangzhou looking to hire 30 employees to sell pork, and the annual salary would be 80,000 to 100,000 RMB. More than 1,300 graduate students showed up to apply. Those graduate students just graduated from different universities including Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, and South China University of Technology.

People who were in charge of the hiring said that this year was a good time to hire. 35 graduate students got their jobs as pork sellers.

Chinese graduate students applying to sell pork for a Guangzhou company.

The first run of pork-selling-position competition.

A Chinese graduate student from Sun-Yat-Sen University sells pork.

Deng, Sun-Yat-Sen University graduate student, is selling pork

Three graduate students in China are promoting pork.

Three graduate students are promoting pork.

Comments from Sina:

If the salary for selling pork is 10 times higher than your current salary, you would also go and sell pork.
It is market economy, whoever pays more money, go there to work.
Stop always college student this college students that. When college students give up their seats for others on the bus, no one writes about that, but when college students cannot find jobs, everyone writes about this and that.

Ding
The effect of the financial crisis really is huge.

There is no advantage to being a college student anymore, and in fact, they have become a burden on society. I don’t know whether knowledge is still of any use in this society.

A thing is valued if it is rare. It is normal that graduate students sell pork. No need to make a fuss. They have good ability to study and create. They might change their job to a better job or run a business by themselves. Plus, the salary the chain store pays is not bad, what is the reason for not going and applying? What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational. Don’t refuse to accept the reality just because it is rare.

Maybe with the rise of the post-80s generation and the appearance of the post-90s generation, China’s next step in reform will begin. People are increasingly willing to speak out, and the strength of public opinion is becoming increasingly powerful, so I hope everything will slowly become better.
The discouragement we have now is the motivating force for future progress.
China, jia you!

A failure of education produces people who fail!

I suggest that the Ministry of Education establish a major in selling pork for doctoral students and a post-doctoral fellowship in pork-selling, and they should invest greatly in this major to resist economic crisis!!!

There is still use for getting more schooling. Communicating with a person who only has a primary school education is definitely different from communicating with a person who has a master’s degree. Likewise when doing something, as long as both are doing it seriously, the thing the person with higher education will produce will be better/more advanced.

It is okay, at least they still have pork to sell, which is still much better than having nothing to do. Everything needs to start from the ground level up, so selling pork today does not mean selling pork for the rest of your life. As long as you keep climbing, keep learning, you will not be overlooked. Gold will always glitter/shine; a hero will find a place to display his power.

Heh heh, China’s human resources are wasted badly. I really don’t understand what is the use of studying hard in college?! There are not many people in my class who are still doing something related to our major. Just what exactly is going on with China?
That there are now so many undergraduates that they must go sell pork, we can understand. But graduate students also selling pork? We are wondering if this is really a good thing or a bad thing!

The reason why the graduate students couldn’t find good jobs is because to find a job in China depends on “guanxi” [social relations]. There are too many back doors.

As society develops, it cannot avoid all sorts of problems. There is nothing wrong with selling pork, and there are many people who want to sell pork but do not have the chance. I am an associate student who has been a pig butcher. Different life experiences mold different people, as well as this society.

I don’t know who truly cares about China’s education. Those who truly care have no power/right to interfere with China’s education.

No matter how you look at it, graduate students selling pork is unbelievable. However, aside from selling pork, what else are our graduate students able to do? How many graduate students can truly be called graduate students?

Comments on Xiaonei:

We are so unlucky! Running into an financial crisis!

Those graduating this year,
even if it was selling dog meat, we would go for it.
Why is it always us who are unlucky?

Working in China nowadays and except for highly specialized jobs, there is no difference between graduate students, undergraduate students, and high school students! It is just that the country set up some fixed educational regulations, so we have to pay and work more before we can get a job!

No one should feel ashamed. Just do whatever helps you adapt to society. Selling pork is not illegal. There is nothing to feel shameful about.

China’s talented people are so many that graduate students can do nothing but sell pork?
Bullshit!
It is not that selling pork is bad; it is just a waste of human talent.

MD, I am an associate degree student so does that mean I will have to go be a beggar?

“Rrrrrrr…” I don’t think I need to study anymore, I am just an associate’s. There is no need to live anymore, society is perverted.

Who should be ashamed?!!! The officials at the Ministry of Education should be the most ashamed!!! Just look at what your education reforms have achieved, take a look at the universities you have built, and the students you have taught! These are master’s degree holders who have studied for ten plus years! These are China’s senior intellectuals! These are the pillars of the country! These are all students from key universities!!!
What are they doing?! Selling pork! If I was the Minister of Education, I would kill myself. So shameful. How could I face the thousands upon thousands of numerous students? Ever since we were small, they told teach us to “好好学习，天天向上” [study hard and improve ourselves daily]. Okay, so now we have gotten our master’s degrees, and we can go sell pork. Those who study, we become low/contemptible to this degree.

A China graduate student tries to sell pork.

An applicant trying to sell pork.

See more posts about students and employment:

  • 月

    OMG, I cant believe this, they are masters!

  • http://yanxishan.wordpress.com/ Yan Xishan

    Well, with these difficult financial times, educational institutions are just going to have to step up and offer degrees that are useful for young adults hitting the job market.

    As such, I am going to talk with the dean of our local university here in Shanxi about offering a PhD in Bacon Studies. We already have the MA in Applied SPAM, and of course our undergraduate program in Sausage Theory, but I am afraid with this sort of competition we are going to need a PhD program!

  • Frenchlover1999

    80,000-100,000 RMB? This is just nonsense. Entry level salary for new grads in China (big cities) is around 3k/month average, ie less than half the salary indicated here. Must be some sort of publicity stunt.

  • Gnah

    Yeah, I don’t get it. 100,000 is a high white collar salary. They could pay some dude from Xian 15,000 a year or something. What gives?

  • krdr

    Interesting, indeed.
    1) It is good for every nation to have people not ashamed to do any honest job
    2) 1300 graduates that sells a pork is waste of money, public money

  • Moe

    They’re not the only ones having troubles. I have a degree as well and I used to work as a programmer/systems administrator for a factory here. Instead of laying me off, they demoted me to line worker.

    So I have a university degree, but I’m stuck working on the factory floor doing manual labor. Though I still do have to fix the computers when there are problems. In other words, it sucks everywhere right now.

  • SniperWZ

    I think this is not real; it looks more like a compeition among MBA students to see which team can sell pork better…there is also no way you can make RMB80K selling pork. A decent salary of RMB5000 a month is already considered very good for many young people in China.

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  • Bobby Boberton

    The shame is not in what job you do, the shame is only if you do it half arsed. I will clean public toilets if it means providing for my family. Its not shameful to sell pork, its only shameful to not work hard because you think its beneath you.

  • pimphustlanstar

    wot happened to selling drugs? worked 4 me.

  • Teacher in China

    There’s a couple of things going on here:
    1) I agree this seems fake. That’s a lot of money to make for selling pork.
    2) Economic financial crisis (despite what CCTV tells me) is hitting China hard, and this year’s (and next year’s, and the year after that) graduating class is f*cked unless they have really really good guangxi.
    3) There are too many people going to university. Same thing happened in the west in the past. One generation sees university as the be-all-end-all because they never had a chance to go there, so they all send their kids there. After 10 years of this, there aren’t any good jobs for the graduates. Meanwhile, the guys that learned a trade right after high school like plumbing or electrician are laughing and rolling in piles of money.
    4) What’s the quality of the university like? In Canada, university has become a second high school for some people. Almost any Joe Average can get in. They go there just so they don’t have to grow up and enter society yet. When they graduate with their Bachelor of Arts (or whatever other nearly useless) degree, they find themselves with no marketable skills and no way to find a decent job. From what I’ve heard about China’s universities, it’s mostly the same story. Maybe they need stricter entrance standards and less entrants…?

    • Dr_MMH_BSc_MSc_MD

      Canadian universities have much higher standards of admission than chinese and american universities. In fact, the average high school graduate from america does not qualify to apply to a canadian university. China is not even on the map for good schools, their top univeristy is rated #169 in the world ranking. Canadian universities are not easy to get into, many professional programs have cut off marks above 90% for entrance. You would find very few programs accessible with an 80% average.

      Most undergraduate university programs are not designed to get a job. The Humanities, Social Sciences and the “Arts” faculties in general have never been expected to result in employment.

      Law, Medicine, Engineering and Nursing are the only degrees that reliably lead to employment.

      mainland Chinese degrees are valueless outside of China.

  • Taojas

    Hey for 80-100K a year I’d sell pork

  • Evalin

    Pork has panache, okay. It puts a smile on people’s faces. It’s worth money. The graduates who sell it deserve good compensation. Enjoy pork!

  • Aaron

    It is nothing but some sort of commercial hype, they have successfully made a wide public respondence by investing into the recruitment campaign, as you can never get your brand exposure on so many main media as well as resounding public awareness by investing the same amount for commercial advertisement

    On this point ,mthey have achieved their goal

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  • Peteryang

    whether fake or not, the scene foretells plummet in next year’s employment market, especially for under-graduate students, they better be prepared to bootblack on the street. less jobs = crime and desperation = social mess = everybody chokes.

    at times I feel everything is ironic, even planned, its reform’s 30 year anniversary now and we are being buttslapped by this once-in-a-fucking-century crisis. I must start warehousing anti-depressant drugs so I can make some decent profit by 2010.

  • fireworks

    Chinese New Year is around the corner. Those guys selling meat will reap the profits then.

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  • http://www.strateegiaturundus.ee Intur

    Well, something is better than nothing..

  • Joel from London

    If this is a publicity stun then hands up to those guy who dream it up.

    At the same time, there is no shame in selling pork (or any other job as long as it’s legal). If those guy use this experience, learn more and wait. They will be a much better person.

    Way way better than those crying babies who think they entitle to everything.

  • David Thooi

    Certainly there are flaws in China education system in addition to below sub-standard teaching in China universities. Frankly, most of the so-called professors themselves teaching in China universities are holding dubious basic degrees and dubious post-graduate qualifications. They are just incompetent. Therefore, it is not surprised that China universities are churning out bunches of “rubbish and gabbage” each year and they cannot find job but ended up doing all kinds of odd job instead.

  • al

    Don’t knock it! I’m a weiguoren graduate with over 20 years’ experience, now working in China. They’re earning more than I am! Lead me to the pork.

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