From assembly lines to massage parlors, four young people with university degrees recount the joy and pain from taking up low-skilled labor
Kong Yiji, the famous disillusioned scholar and laughingstock in Lu Xun’s novel, has recently been resurrected as one of the hottest trendy memes for Chinese netizens. With the slang “taking off Kong Yiji’s long gown (脱掉孔乙己的长衫, tuō diào Kǒng Yǐjǐ de chángshān),” young Chinese graduates have taken to venting online about their bleak prospects in China’s job market. Unable to find suitable jobs, they’re forced to swallow their pride and settle for blue-collar jobs that do not typically require higher education.
So, who are highly educated laborers, and how are they doing? Recently, plenty of our listeners answered Story FM’s call for stories of how they ended up in low-skilled jobs after getting advanced degrees. Eventually, we selected four narrators in different stages of life and different industries.
Founded in 2017 by Kou Aizhe, Story FM is one of the most renowned podcast in China. Each episode focuses on ordinary people’s lives and viewpoints, including the difficulties of marginalized people. Through intimate and private interviews, Story FM digs out first-person experiences and lets listeners immerse themselves in another person’s voice and feelings. You can listen to their podcast in Chinese on Ximalaya, Qingting FM, Apple Podcasts, and the 故事FM mini-app on WeChat.
Translated By
Ana Padilla Fornieles is a Spanish translator, writer and creative currently based in Beijing, where she is part of Spittoon International Arts Collective and a regular contributor to The Beijinger. You can find her prose and poetry featured in The Shanghai Literary Review, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, Womanhood, Sledgehammer and more. Her comics and linocut prints have appeared in Shaving in the Dark, F*EMS and Celestite Poetry. Her literary translation work has been published or is forthcoming with a series of publishing houses and magazines, such as Penguin, De Gruyter, Spittoon Magazine and Books from Taiwan.
