When Tang Peng met his ex-classmates at a recent party, he found most of them had changed their jobs in the past few years. Only a few of the more than 30 people were still in their original jobs, and some had even changed five or six times.

"I was shocked by the drastic change of people's careers," said Tang, who has been serving in the General Office of Shaanxi provincial government since graduating from college 16 years ago.

A similar experience happened to Hai Feng, who found he was the only one in his class who had not changed jobs since his graduation four years ago.

"I was informed from time to time by my ex-classmates of their new addresses and numbers," said Hai, a media employee in Xi'an who graduated from the economic department of Beijing University.

Like Tang and Hai, more people have a wider choice of jobs in today's China, which enables them to re-define and achieve their ambitions.

However, such freedom was not available to the elder generation, who were given one job by the government upon graduation and remained in it all their lives.

"In my days, people kept one lifelong job, regardless of whether they were satisfied with it, unlike the young nowadays," said Hai Feng's father, who retired from the same factory where he began his working career.

In the past, job changes were strictly controlled through residence registration. Most of the time, each Chinese had only one job in a system known as the "iron rice bowl."

Moreover, parents often handed over their positions to children to keep a "good and stable job." As a result, many Chinese people took jobs they didn't like or were not good at, and often remained so for life.

However, since China began the gradual transition to a socialist market economy in the 1980s, the government has been reforming the residence registration system. More people, especially the talented, found jobs that suited them. To change jobs has thus become easier and more frequent.

Zhang Kejun, a Xi'an resident who began working in the early 1980s, was first a cadre in the local branch of the Communist Youth League, and then on the staff of a local newspaper.

After working as a journalist, a liaison officer for a Hong Kong-based media firm and a freelancer, Zhang now works as deputy manager of a state-owned enterprise in Beijing.

However, it was only in the 1990s that changing jobs became commonplace.

In today's China, the iron rice bowls are disappearing as China reforms government branches as well as the personnel management of enterprises.

Lifelong jobs are being replaced by employment contracts, and college graduates are choosing jobs independently.

(eastday.com March 25, 2003)