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

Only a few of the 30-plus people were still in their original jobs, and some had even changed five or six times, Tang said.

A similar thing 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 Peking 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 was given one job by the state after 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 people, 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 company and a freelancer, Zhang now works as deputy manager of a state-owned enterprise in Beijing.

"I have had a zigzagging career," said Zhang.

Zhang was one of the first people to give up their job to hunt for a new one. At that time, turning to business was described as "going into sea" and changing jobs was called "jumping from one trough to another".

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 governmental branches as well as the personnel management of enterprises.

Lifelong occupations are being replaced by employment contracts, and college graduates are choosing jobs independently. Like Zhang Kejun. More people are adjusting their career goals by looking for more suitable jobs.

A recent survey called the "Youth Development Report" in the eastern metropolis of Shanghai showed that 23.8 percent of working young people had previously changed jobs, and 56.3 percent were expecting to change.

Peking University professor Xia Xueluan also revealed similar findings in a book called "Chinese in Transitional Period", which provided a sample survey in Beijing and south China's boomtown Shenzhen.

About 45 percent had experienced job changes and over 90 percent of these were on their own initiative, according to Xia's survey.

"At parties with my former classmates, the first thing we often do is to exchange business cards with each other, because our jobs could change often," said Zhang Kejun.

It was the improved social security system that freed people from worrying about job changes, according to Zhang. "In the past, one’s job was closely related to one's health care, old-age pension and unemployment insurance, but now they are all social welfare."

As China becomes more open and reforms deepen, not only Chinese but also foreigners are choosing jobs freely and independently in the vigorous Chinese society, said sociologist Shi Ying.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2003)