China Exclusive: Chinese youth try \"gap year\"
Updated: 2012-08-01 22:46:00 (Xinhua)
BEIJING, August 1 (Xinhua) -- While most of their peers were happy with tackling the job market or seeking postgraduate education, fresh college graduates Wu Haitao and Sun Qili packed up and started a totally different life journey.
Their video \"Gap Year - A Tale of Two Diors\" has made them online celebrities, receiving thousands of clicks on Youku, a popular video-sharing website in China.
\"Something that isn't done now will not be done either in the future. We just don't want to have regrets when we grow old,\" Wu and Sun said.
Both graduates of the Dalian University of Foreign Languages, in northeast China's Liaoning province, the pair plan to travel across China by hitchhiking over the course of four months.
\"Some people may think we want to escape the heavy job-hunting pressure, but we just want to find out what we really want to do in the future,\" Wu said.
The expression \"gap year\" refers to a period of time, usually following high school or university graduation, in which people disengage from curricular education and/or work and travel or work abroad instead.
The concept was introduced to China in 2009 by Sun Dongchun in his book \"The Delayed Gap Year.\" Sun wrote about his experience traveling in six Asian countries over the course of thirteen months.
\"My gap year was a journey of learning about and enjoying love, \" Sun Dongchun said. Douban, a popular Chinese social network, features a page set up by netizens specifically for the purpose of encouraging Chinese students to try their own gap year experiences. In China, it is routine for most university seniors to apply for jobs or continue their
education following graduation. Some government agencies and companies in China only recruit fresh graduates during their yearly mass recruitment.
An Xin, a columnist Yunxin Public Welfare Weekly, once dreamed of studying abroad to become an actuary. But during an overseas exchange program in the U.S., she changed her mind and decided to take a year off to travel across south Asia, leading her to engage in volunteer work in Thailand and Nepal.
\"There were many difficulties and challenges during my journey, but I overcame them and discovered my inner desire to share my experiences with others,\" An said.
Xiong Bingqi, an education expert and columnist, said most older Chinese consider the \"gap year\" experience to be a waste of time for their children, adding that most Chinese universities refuse to allow students to delay routine studies except for extraordinary reasons, such as illness.
Sun Dongchun said Chinese society is not inclusive enough for young people to be able to fully exercise their personalities.
\"In spite of this, I believe society is progressing and more young people will be able to have their own gap year experience,\" he said.
