雙語:"蟻族"生存狀況引來兩會關注

【英文原文】

China's Lawmakers Turn to Plight of 'Ants'
A string of villages on the outskirts of Beijing has become the unlikely focus of a national discussion about China's stubbornly tough job market for young people, as officials meet in the capital for the annual session of China's legislature.

The area north of Beijing is populated by young people who call themselves the 'ant tribe' because of their industriousness as well as their crowded, modest living conditions. Members of the National People's Congress, which is meeting this week in Beijing, held a press conference Thursday to highlight the plight of unemployed graduates and call for far-reaching reforms in the education system, which they say hasn't prepared students adequately for the job market. Proposals included more vocational training and greater interaction between schools and employers.

'The living conditions of some 'ants' could easily make people feel worried and also trigger people's discontented mood,' said Ge Jianxiong, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the advisory body that meets alongside the congress this week. 'This has to be given great attention by both the government and society.'

Earlier this month, some conference members visited the village. Several said they were moved to tears when they heard two students, who share a five-square-meter (54 square-feet) room, sang a song they composed about their tough lives.

Government statistics show 87% of college graduates found work last year. But many graduates doubt those figures, and they say that jobs that are available often pay a barely livable wage.

Underemployment among young graduates is the product largely of a rapid expansion by the country's state-controlled universities over the last decade that dramatically increased enrollment without adjusting the curriculum to provide students with more marketable skills.

Officials have acknowledged problems. Premier Wen Jiabao, in his annual work report that kicked off the National People's Congress last week, pledged to adjust university curriculums to 'meet employment needs and the needs of economic and social development.' He also announced plans to spend more than $6 billion this year to stimulate employment, with an emphasis on helping recent college graduates.

The term 'ant tribe' was coined by Lian Si, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. In survey he made of 600 Beijing-area graduates between 2007 and 2009, Mr. Lian found their average monthly income was the equivalent of $300.

'The life of these college graduates is pretty tough,' Mr. Lian said. 'And what's worse, behind them, there are more than a million Chinese families' who sent their children to college hoping they'd make it in the big cities.

One of the places where the young people congregate is Xiaoyuehe, a crumbling one-street village on the north end of Beijing. On one side is a small canal and the other a crazy quilt of dorm-like rooms, cheap restaurants and muddy paths. Several thousand migrants live there, many of whom are college graduates from across China.

One is Zhao Lei, a 24-year-old computer science major who graduated in 2008 from Beijing Jiaotong University. Mr. Zhao shares a 12-square-meter with five others. 'For most of us who live here, we choose to live here as we have no alternatives,' Mr. Zhao said. 'This is a place we could afford with our meager income when we first step into society.'

Mr. Zhao said it's good to know that the 'ant tribe' that he belongs to finally caught wide attention from society, but he also says that what they need is not discussion but 'real help that won't cause our dreams to be shattered by cruel reality.'

Mr. Lian, the professor, estimates that there are more than 100,000 college graduates living in different 'settlement villages' on the periphery of Beijing. The number has grown quickly in recent years as more college graduates from rapidly expanding universities around China flocked to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. A big portion of the college graduates stuck in the settlement villages on the outskirts of Beijing are from rural China. Those who have jobs are mostly engaged in temporary IT-related work in Zhongguancun, a district of the city sometimes called China's Silicon Valley, or in the services industry.

Local officials say they're trying to improve the situation. Officials in Tangjialing recently rolled out an ambitious plan to renovate the area by investing the equivalent of $600 million to replace the hovels with high-rise apartment buildings that can house 20,000 college graduates.

【中文譯文】

在政府官員聚會北京出席今年“兩會”期間，北京郊區的一些村莊有點出人意料地成了人們在熱議年青人就業形勢嚴峻這一話題時的關注點。

瀋陽大學舉辦的一場畢業生招聘會這些在北京市北部的村莊居住着大批自稱爲“蟻族”的年青人。由於工作辛苦、居住地擁擠寒酸，他們給自己取了這麼個綽號。本週正在北京開會的一些全國人大代表和政協委員週四舉行了一個新聞發佈會，重點介紹了失業大學畢業生的困境，並呼籲對現行教育體系進行重大改革，他們說這一體系未能將大學生培養成符合就業市場需要的人。這些代表和委員提出的改革建議包括，增加職業技能培訓以及加強學校與用人單位之間的互動等。

全國政協委員葛劍雄說，這些“螞蟻”的生存狀況可能很容易令人擔憂，並有可能引發人們的不滿情緒。他說，政府和社會對此必須予以高度關注。

本月早些時候，一些全國政協委員考察了“蟻族”們聚居的一個村莊。其中幾位委員說，當聽到兩個共住一間五平方米小屋的學生唱起一支反映其艱難生活的自編歌曲時，他們被感動得哭了。

政府的統計數據顯示，去年有87%的大學畢業生找到了工作。但一些畢業生懷疑這一數字的真實性，而且他們說能找到的都是一些工資往往低得只能讓人勉強維持生活的工作。

大學畢業生的高失業率很大程度上是過去十年大學迅速擴招造成的，這導致入學人數急劇增加，但學校的課程設置卻未能及時進行調整，以便使學生獲得必要的就業技能。

政府官員們已經承認了問題的存在。溫家寶總理在人大開幕時所作的政府工作報告中承諾，要調整大學的課程設置，以滿足就業需要及經濟和社會發展需要。他還宣佈，政府計劃今年斥資60億美元以刺激就業，重點幫助應屆大學畢業生找工作。

“蟻族”一詞是北京對外經濟貿易大學教授廉思最早提出來的。2007年至2009年間，他對北京地區的600名大學畢業生進行了調查，他發現這些人的平均月收入相當於300美元。

廉思說，這些大學畢業生的生活非常艱難，更糟糕的是，在他們的身後是一百多萬箇中國家庭，這些家庭把孩子送進大學，希望他們能在大城市裏過上好日子。

小月河是年輕大學畢業生的聚居地之一，這是北京北郊一個只有一條街的破敗小村。村子的一頭是一條小溝渠，另外一頭是排得密密麻麻的像宿舍一樣的屋子、便宜飯館和泥濘的小路。數千名外地人住在這裏，其中很多是來自中國各地的大學畢業生。

24歲的趙磊就是其中的一個，他2008年從北京交通大學畢業，學的是計算機科學。趙磊和另外五人合租了一間12平方米的屋子。他說，對大多數住在這裏的人來說，我們選擇住在這裏，是因爲沒有其他選擇；我們剛進入社會，只能用自己微薄的收入租這樣的地方。

趙磊說，他很高興得知自己所屬的“蟻族”終於引起了社會的普遍關注，不過他也說，他們需要的不是議論，而是不會讓他們的夢想被殘酷的現實打碎的實實在在的幫助。

廉思教授估計，在北京周邊的各聚居村裏，住着10多萬大學畢業生。由於全國各地迅速擴招的大學有越來越多的畢業生涌入北京和上海等大城市，最近幾年這一數字增長迅速。很大一部分住在北京周邊聚居村的大學畢業生來自中國農村地區。有工作的人大多是在有“中國的硅谷”之稱的中關村從事臨時性IT相關工作或從事服務業。

當地官員說，他們正在努力改善現狀。唐家嶺的官員最近推出了一項宏大的計劃，將投資六億美元對這一地區進行改造，把簡屋陋舍改造成能容納兩萬名大學畢業生的高層公寓樓。