Category Candidates & Labor market

China’s Labor Advances May Affect U.S. Prices

As Chinese workers gain more power and employment choices, the country’s economy has had to adjust. And these changes may soon impact prices on goods in America. Host Steve Inskeep talks with NPR’s Frank Langfitt and Alexandra Harney, author of The China Price, about what the future may hold for the world economy.

In recent years Chinese workers gained leverage due to an unanticipated labor shortage, Langfitt says.

“This gave more workers a lot more power vis-a-vis management,” he says, adding that while people were desperate to have jobs in the ’90s, today they may walk out of a factory if they don’t like their job or the working conditions.

This shift in power has led to increased costs for Chinese manufacturers.

“China used to be so cheap they were unbeatable,” Harney says. “The China price was the cheapest price you could get for anything around the world, but now that China is becoming more expensive, thousands of factories are starting to close down in Southern China.”

As a result, Harney says, American companies will start paying more for goods they buy from China.

“I think that we are going to start seeing more and more of this show up on American price tags this year and next year,” she says. “Some retailers and importers are telling me that they are already starting to have to raise the prices in the U.S.”

Chinese salaries likely to rise as government encourages collective bargaining

Hangzhou, April 12 (Xinhua) — China is launching a systematic effort to support ordinary workers to bargain for salaries with their employers.

The All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the national labor organization with a membership of 169.94 million people in 2007, released its plan to promote the collective bargaining in more industries and regions.

The mechanism would allow trade unions or labor representatives to take the lead in appealing for salary rises and directly negotiate with employers until the two sides reached a plan.

“We would promote the negotiations of reasonable salaries, bonus, allowances and subsidies,” said Sun Chunlan, ACFTU vice-chairperson, at a meeting here on Thursday.

The idea to solve salary disputes through organized negotiation was introduced by former the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (now the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security), which issued a tentative measure in 2000.

“The employer and the workers are equal in raising suggestions and have the same veto power,” it said.

The promotion of such a practice, however, has been hindered by the lack of legislative support and the diversified situation of both public and non-public enterprises. In addition, the growing number of job seekers gave employers far more leverage than the workers in bargaining labor prices.

“And trade unions in many private companies are established by the business owners and are affiliated to the company. Therefore, they are unable to effectively bargain salary rises for the workers,” said Xu Xiaojun, a professor from China Institute of Industrial Relations who specialized in trade union study.

“Unreasonable salaries have become a major problem causing social conflict in the Chinese labor market.”

ACFTU Vice-chairperson Sun Chunlan said it would explore and try to solve existing problems in promoting salary negotiation.

Authorities in Shanghai issued a detailed plan in March to promote such practices. It aimed to establish the bargaining mechanism in 75 percent of state-owned enterprises and 60 percent of non-public enterprises with trade unions this year. The plan would expand the number of laborers covered in the mechanism by 10 percent.

In March, a salary negotiation in Hua Yue, an adhesive tape producer in Hebei Province with more than 700 employees, lifted workers’ annual minimum salary by 1,860 yuan (265 U.S. dollars). Experienced workers enjoyed a higher increase.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, per-capita disposable income was 13,786 yuan in urban areas last year, up 17.2 percent, or 12.2 percent in real terms. Per-capita income was 4,140 yuan in rural areas, up 15.4 percent, or 9.5 percent in real terms.

Asia: Not Just a Job, Its An Adventure

The recent Asian sensation and economic explosion has sent citizens of China and South Korea to working tirelessly in mastering the English language. This is the new Asian fascination. English is not just a new way of communicating or status symbol; it is a guaranteed competitive advantage for the young and savvy Asian in a recently overly exposed society with “super power” intentions.

Not surprisingly, the English sector of the language industry is one of the most profitable in China and South Korea. Asian schools are bustling and working relentlessly to aggressively recruit native English speakers to teach English in their countries.

“Westerners” are enthralled by these job opportunities because it gives them the opportunity to explore Asia, a part of the world that until now has remained a mystery for many. These positions are quite seductive because it allows English speakers to save a large percentage of their salaries, and indulge in a new cultural adventure while learning a new language and meeting some great people along the way. These jobs come with a furnished apartment, a round trip ticket, severance pay, free language classes and medical insurance. Some employers will even provide three meals per day, a cell phone and a sign on bonus. Teachers are not required to have previous teaching experience; they are however required to have a Bachelors degree which can be in any concentration.

Xandria Hendricks, co-founder of Allestra Recruiting, Inc., a Florida based recruiting firm specializes in recruiting Teachers for the Asian market, has confirmed that this is a vibrant market. She stated that “the recent attention on Asia has resulted in an equally overwhelming demand from individuals who want to go to Asia and Asian institutions that are eagerly recruiting to fill positions both in China and South Korea. Allestra Recruiting has partnered with several Asian companies to place English speakers into jobs in both China and South Korea. Allestra’s partners include Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Games official language training services supplier.

To contact Allestra Recruiting, Inc., e-mail Admin@Allestrarecruiting.com. For more information, visit the Web site at www.Allestrarecruiting.com.

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Professional Free Press Release News Wire

China job outlook weakens -Manpower

BEIJING, March 11 (Reuters) – China’s employment outlook has slumped in the wake of a new labour law, hitting its lowest since Manpower Inc (MAN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) began a quarterly survey of job market conditions three years ago, the firm said on Tuesday.

A poll of 4,055 employers in seven major cities showed that China’s net employment outlook for the second quarter — the difference between those firms adding jobs and those cutting them — was still positive at 8 percent.

But the reading, which is seasonally adjusted, was down 7 percentage points from the first quarter and 8 percentage points from a year earlier.

Lucille Wu, managing director of Manpower Greater China, said the decline was mainly because of the new Labour Contract Law, which took effect at the start of 2008.

“The law is further regulating corporate employment activities. Furthermore, misunderstandings of some articles of the law also lead enterprises to adopt more cautious hiring activities,” Wu said.

The survey showed that employers in the services sector had the strongest hiring plans; the least optimistic were in finance, mining and construction, transportation and utilities.

Big events such as the Beijing Olympic Games and the Shanghai World Expo, the policy priorities set out in China’s 2006-2010 five-year plan and a positive macroeconomic environment would sustain job growth in the services industry, Manpower said.

It said the employment outlook in central and western China was quite impressive, especially in the cities of Wuhan and Chongqing, due to their booming services sector.

Taiwan was the least optimistic Asia-Pacific job market, according to Manpower’s survey, while Singapore and India anticipated the strongest hiring.

For a related story on the global hiring outlook, especially in the United States, please double-click on [ID:nN10460897] (Reporting by Langi Chiang; Editing by Alan Wheatley)

New Rules Target Chinese Labor Practices

A “Made in China” tag usually means the goods cost less to make there than in the U.S.

But the difference in labor and other expenses with the rest of the world is narrowing. And new labor laws could add to the cost of doing business in China.

New rules that went into effect on Jan. 1 could offer more job security for Chinese workers, analysts say. On paper, the rules will require firms to sign contracts with longtime employees and shell out overtime pay. They’ll also make it easier for workers to unionize.

“China can’t afford to have tens of millions of workers who are getting abused,” said Auret van Heerden, president of the Fair Labor Association.

FLA is a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of companies, universities and other groups promoting better labor practices worldwide. Most FLA firms are apparel makers. They include Nike, (NKE) Nordstrom (JWN) and Eddie Bauer, (EBHI) which all have workers in China.

Given China’s record of passing and then ignoring labor rights laws, some say the new laws could be another toothless tiger.

“They have sets of laws that, if companies followed them to the letter of the law, would make things much different,” said Andrew Connor, a senior associate at recruiting firm Pacific Bridge, which finds managers for firms in China. “But what’s in the law isn’t necessarily what happens in China.”

U.S. Firms See Little Impact

American companies operating abroad usually follow U.S. work standards. Those are already more strict than the laws in China and other developing countries.

“We’ll have to watch and wait and see what happens,” said George Scalise, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association. “We’re staying in touch with a number of people in HR departments (of U.S. companies with facilities in China).”

The rules’ biggest impact likely will be on Chinese firms, says SIA spokesman John Greenagel. “From where we stand, we have learned they aren’t used to doing business this way.”

Many U.S. electronics firms have operations in China. Chipmakers Intel, (INTC) Advanced Micro Devices, (AMD) Cypress Semiconductor (CY) and Micron Technology (MU) all have test and/or packaging facilities there.

Cypress CEO T.J. Rodgers says U.S. firm have to employ people in China if they want to sell there.

“If you want to play in China, you have to have resources in China,” Rodgers said.

But he figures the laws won’t add much to the cost of American firms doing business in China. He views them mainly as another layer of bureaucracy.

Victor Ma, head of Websense’s human relations in China, agrees.

“There might be a cost to the employer (for added paperwork), but the cost is unremarkable,” Ma said. “It is small, and can be balanced by higher productivity.”

Websense moved part of its operations to China in January 2007. The Internet filtering and security software firm now has 120 employees there, or 10% of its staff.

Worker Rights

Under China’s new laws, companies have to sign work contracts with all permanent employees who’ve been there at least 10 years.

SIA’s Scalise notes that most U.S. firms already do so in China. But up to 80% of Chinese workers have had no job contracts, according to various estimates.

The rules also force firms to pay overtime wages — a practice not always followed by Chinese firms.

The new rules could reduce China’s notoriously high employee turnover. Many Chinese factories have 100% annual turnover. Analysts seldom capture that cost of doing business in China, says FLA’s Van Heerden.

Lower turnover would boost productivity and lower hiring and training costs, watchers say.

The new laws also strengthen the hand of the country’s main union, the government-backed All-China Federation of Trade Unions. They give the ACFTU the right to bargain with employers for the first time. The union says it wants to organize workers at foreign-owned companies.

The rules’ ACFTU ties might give them a better chance of being enforced. As retail giant Wal-Mart (WMT) found out, the state-backed union can be very persuasive.

Wal-Mart has resisted unionizing efforts in the U.S. But in August 2006, it let the ACFTU organize its 30,000 employees in the 60 stores it had in China at the time. Public pressure played a role in the retailer’s decision.

“Wal-Mart made a decision to comply rather than fight it because of the negative image they were afraid of getting,” Connor said. “When you’re dealing with an authoritarian government like China, things are open, but you don’t know when they can close.”

It was a smart business move for Wal-Mart. As of February, it had more than tripled the number of stores it has in China to 202.

In the long run, U.S. firms have no choice but to go along with the law and deal with the newly powerful union, says PricewaterhouseCoopers analyst Ed Pausa. “A number of international companies will resist, (but) I don’t think they will succeed.”

As costs rise in China, some U.S. companies are looking elsewhere, including Vietnam and India.

“Vietnam is becoming more attractive and stable. Wages are still lower than China,” Connor said.

In China, Your Dream Job Is Still Tied to Your Paycheck

When Wayne Ho was growing up in southern California, his father, a first-generation Chinese-American, wanted him to become one of the “usual three”– a doctor, lawyer or banker. In his sophomore year at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Ho decided to switch majors from pre-med to English and ethnic studies and to pursue his passion in public policy. His father wasn’t happy about it.

“He basically told me how can I get a job if I get these majors,” recalls Mr. Ho, who is now executive director of the coalition for Asian American Children and Families, a non-profit organization. Degrees in social science might not help him find a high-paying job, said his father, who passed away three months after their long conversation on his career choice.

Non-profit director Wayne Ho talks to WSJ’s Li Yuan about why he pursued a career that he loved over one that promised financial well-being, against his Chinese father’s will. (Feb. 26)
If the idea that a father needs to tell his son what to do with his life seems peculiar to some, it’s because career choice plays out differently in China than in the U.S.

At some point in their lives, many Americans ponder what to do with their lives. You can pursue your ideals or settle down in a more stable and financially rewarding job. You may consult with your parents, but ultimately it’s your decision. You don’t need to justify it to anybody but yourself.

In China, what you do with your life is a family affair. If you’re smart and hard-working, you will be expected to pursue a stable and high-paying job — whether you like it or not. The fear of poverty is so ingrained in society that the first order of family business is financial security. The pressure can be huge. Snobbish relatives may laugh at the parents for allowing a child to become a struggling artist. So, sacrificing your passion for arts and literature to take a “respectable” job is considered normal. Otherwise, we can be considered stupid, selfish and disrespectful of our parents.

That’s not to say Chinese people never follow their career dreams. But those who do, I’d argue, are exceptions to the rule. Their parents are either very open-minded – like mine, who let me have my head and become a journalist — or have deep faith in their children’s talents. There’s no shortage of stories about Chinese parents devoting their entire lives to their children’s musical career. Chasing your dreams, especially when they don’t lead to stable or lucrative jobs, remains more of a dream than reality for the average Chinese.

It’s not unusual for Chinese parents to decide what their children should study in college. For example, my older Chinese friends often ask me what their sons and daughters should major in at college. They never believed me when I said they should study whatever they feel passionate about. At 18, they argue, the children will forget about their hobbies and ideals in a few months anyway. And passion doesn’t put food on the table.

I’ve seen many high-school kids leave the choices of college and major to their “wiser” parents, jump for the highest-paying jobs they can find right after graduation, and then, as young professionals, torment themselves because they hate their high-paying jobs.

Sometimes even when the children know what they want to do with their lives, they won’t rebel against their parents.

During one of my recent Chinese New Year phone greetings, I asked a friend about her 29-year-old son. “He’s doing well, working at a large mutual fund in Beijing,” my friend said. “But what about his passion for drama?” I asked, remembering that he co-wrote and directed a play a few years ago.

“He knew that he had to make money, like everyone else,” my friend said. “He’s making between 200,000 to 300,000 yuan ($28,000 to $42,000) a year (after tax). He’s happy about that.”

I’m not saying that most Americans would have made a different choice than my friend’s son. There are plenty of Americans who choose careers largely based on how much money they can make. But at least they made a choice and knew what deal they made with themselves.

I believe there are no right or wrong choices as long as you are honest with yourself. Some bankers and lawyers I know thrive at their challenging jobs, while others hate the long hours and can’t wait to quit as soon as they pay off student loans or save enough security money.

The idea that there’s a choice between life’s passion and financial rewards is also relatively new in China. My parents’ generation, and even my generation, were taught to serve as “a brick in the building of socialism,” wherever the party wanted us to go.

Then, about 10 years ago, college graduates were allowed to find jobs on their own. But quickly, everybody marched into the great competition of getting rich. Survival of the fittest became the game of the whole country. With a close-to-none social safety-net, even those who are making decent salaries by American standards feel they’re far from being financially secure. They have to save to pay for education, healthcare, retirement and unemployment. And not just for themselves, but also for their children, parents and in-laws.

Economic prosperity has often been followed by increased appreciation of arts and literature. Take Florence during the Renaissance, Elizabethan England and New York in early 20th century. I’m hoping the same is true for China. Perhaps one day not too far in the future the country’s burgeoning middle class will attach more value to career satisfaction that has nothing to do with how much you make.

Male nurses scarce in China, despite many looking for work

BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) — There is something strange regarding the emerging occupation of male nurses in China. Advertisements claim they are in demand, yet many well-trained male nurses are looking for employment; some are trying to change their job, according to media reports.

In big cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, in fast-developing areas, as well as in less-developed provinces, male nurses are scarce. It’s exceedingly difficult for hospitals to recruit them.

Many people attribute the scarcity to society’s view point that nursing is a women’s job. Women are seen as more careful and patient than men, while as nurses they take great care of patients, providing injections and dispensing medicine.

In fact, there are many reasons hospitals need male nurses. In general, they are physically stronger or more energetic than women. Male nurses are particularly needed in emergency departments, men’s departments and psychiatric hospitals, to name but a few, according to some experts.

According to some media studies, many students and their parents hold the wrong concepts about the profession. This is the main reason very few males are likely to take nursing when they choose a subject for their secondary or higher learning.

According to a staff member of Jinan Health School in the Shandong provincial capital, in 2002, the institute recruited more than 130 students for its nursing program. Among them, only eight were male. What’s worse, four later transferred to other specialties.

Although hospitals claim a scarcity of males in nursing specialties leads to the recruitment difficulty, those seeking employment see it rather differently.

In a recent employment poll of male nurses conducted by China’s Male Nurse Forum (www.malenurse.cn/bbs/), the 31 nurses participating gave surprising responses.

The results showed only five were still on the job, two had changed occupation, and the other 24 were looking for employment.

A male nursing high school graduate who asked to remain anonymous said it was extremely difficult to find a hospital job if you have no money or connections with hospital leaders. A bribe of at least 50,000 yuan (about 6,670 U.S. dollars) is needed to secure employment, the man claimed.

While an overwhelming majority of male nurses chose their specialty due to the introduction of teachers and parents, many were now regretting their decision.

Another unidentified male nursing student in Shanghai who claimed he was inveigled into the profession, said “It’s really a shame for a man to do nursing”.

Feng Hongsheng, a Jinan Air Force Hospital nurse, said when he was a hospital intern his teacher told him, “Get a move on. You’d better change your occupation while you are young”.

Feng said his base monthly salary is 800 yuan (about 106.67 U.S.dollars). One of his teachers at the hospital who has worked for more than 30 years, earns only 1,000 yuan a month.

He added nurses were at a disadvantage and their social status and pay were not good. He is planning to leave the hospital and do nursing for private households in his own business.

Chen Zengchuan, an employee with a labor agency for health professionals in the southwest Chongqing Municipality, said the scarcity of male nurses doesn’t directly mean a pressing need as “there are enough female nurses in every hospital”.

The main reason for the scarcity lies in the low payment for nurses. He suggested the salary and social status for male nurses be enhanced so as to ensure a sustainable development of this emerging occupation.

Executive hiring in Asia to remain firm in Q1 — Hudson

HONG KONG — Executive hiring by multinationals in Japan is set to reach a six-year high this quarter but a global credit squeeze will affect staffing plans at IT and finance firms in Hong Kong, according to a survey by recruitment firm Hudson.

The report was slightly less upbeat than a previous survey three months ago because hiring expectations in China and Singapore have dipped. Hudson said rising concern that the United States is heading for a recession would make banks and finance firms in the region more cautious about hiring.

Still, 66 percent of managers at multinationals in Japan expect to increase recruitment this quarter, according to the survey released on Thursday, up from 65 percent three months ago and the highest level since the Hudson report was launched in late 2001.

In China, 61 percent of managers at multinationals plan to increase headcount in the next three months, down just slightly from 64 percent in the previous quarter.

The survey by Chicago-based Hudson Highland Group Inc. covered responses from 2,500 managers at multinational companies across industry sectors in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

“The market in Asia is still looking buoyant and it is quite separate from issues in the United States,” said Gina McLellan, Hong Kong manager for the US firm.

“But from February to April we’ll start to see the actual size of bonuses and whether recently announced global headcount cuts by some investment banks will come in Asia.”

Asia’s financial services sector is booming, helped by China’s and India’s rapid economic development, and international finance companies are expanding in the region.

JP Morgan says it could hire up to 1,900 people in Hong Kong in the next three years and Credit Suisse plans to hire at least 70 bankers in the Asia-Pacific this year.

However, there could be job losses too in financial centres Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo as investment banks including Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and UBS have announced plans to lay off thousands of staff worldwide in the wake of the credit squeeze, even though those cuts are likely to focus on the United States and Europe.

In Hong Kong, 58 percent of managers surveyed plan to add staff this quarter, up from 54 percent three months ago, but nearly a third of IT&T companies and 23 percent in finance and banking say the global credit squeeze triggered by problems in the US subprime mortgage sector would have an impact on hiring.

In Japan, 12 percent of managers across sectors say hiring plans will be affected by the credit squeeze compared with less than 10 percent in Singapore and China.

“Hiring expectations remain at a high level in all the markets surveyed and the outlook is positive,” McLellan said. “But employers are caught between sharply rising salaries and bonuses on one hand and high staff turnover rates on the other. This is most marked in China.”

The survey showed a third of managers in China expect to increase managers’ starting salaries by more than 20 percent to attract candidates and 47 percent reported turnover rates above 10 percent.

In Singapore and Hong Kong, 19 to 20 percent of managers said they had to offer pay increases of more than 20 percent but in Japan only 4.0 percent of managers saw such a need.

Atkins to recruit from China

Atkins has started recruiting in Mandarin to attract Chinese engineering undergraduates studying in the UK

The country’s biggest consultant takes on nearly 400 graduates a year – a third of them civil engineers.

Now Atkins head of recruitment Karen Wallbridge said the company had hit on the idea of recruiting directly in Mandarin to make sure it was reaching the widest possible audience.

Atkins has decided to use native Mandarin-speaking recent graduates within the company to address students from China who are studying for engineering degrees in the UK.

Wallbridge told a skills conference organised by Construction News: “Many people in India and China view engineering as a blue riband qualification, the way it used to be viewed in the UK. There are a lot of good young people coming to this country that we would like to bring on board.”

She said the events had been extremely popular among Chinese students pleased to be addressed in their first language and that rooms had been filled with undergraduates keen to find a high-profile job.

She said: “It’s made us review our policy on communication altogether. We look at recruiting good communicators.

“But now we are re-thinking whether this is the same thing as being able to speak good English.”

The firm has already held a number of events at UCL in London and one in Manchester, the largest centre for Chinese students in the UK. It is planning more events at other universities.

Wallbridge said the Chinese recruits would be used not just in the UK but back in their native China where Atkins employs several hundred consultants.

She added the company had not ruled out expanding the plan to cover speakers of other languages.

Sourced from Construction News

Chinese students pulled by opposing tides

By Maureen Fan

CAOTANG, China – This week in Caotang village, members of the Huang family were preparing for the Chinese New Year by making traditional dishes, scrubbing their already spotless homes and paying their respects to the family patriarch.

They were also discussing the fortunes of one of their most promising members, Huang He, a film and television student. In 2006, after 10 years of study in Northern Virginia and Michigan, Huang returned to China. Now, at the dawn of the Year of the Rat — a symbol of prosperity — he is contemplating heading back to the United States for work.

“I’m caught in between. My friends think I should set my feet firmly in the U.S. because I have already spent so much time there,” said Huang, who wonders who will look after his parents if he leaves. “I’m not really lost. I’m not panicked. I’m just looking for my next opportunity and my next home.”

Huang, 36, is a “sea turtle,” one of the thousands of students who return to China each year after spending time abroad. For many of them, a visit to their family villages during the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, is near mandatory. But such visits also force them to confront changes in modern China — changes that may prompt them to swim away again.

A rising tide of sea turtles

More than 1 million Chinese have studied abroad since this country began opening up in 1978, with just over a quarter of them returning after their studies. As the number of Chinese studying in the United States has risen over the years, so, too, has the number of sea turtles, so named because “overseas returnee” in Mandarin sounds like the word for the animal. According to the official New China News Agency, 42,000 students came back to this country in 2006, up 21 percent from the previous year.

But the China those students return to is not always the China they left. The phenomenal economic growth here has led not only to the development of villages and towns, but to a shift in Chinese values and priorities. Meanwhile, the sea turtles have experienced changes of their own.

After a decade studying communications, broadcasting and cinematic arts at Shenandoah University in Northern Virginia and Central Michigan University, Huang is a faithful mimic of President Bush, a regular viewer of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” a fan of the Green Bay Packers and a lover of steak. But he is also a citizen of China who misses his hometown dishes and his aging parents.

Caught in between

Fluent in two cultures, he is not quite at home in either.

“After living in the U.S. for so long, all sea turtles have to relearn their own culture,” said Huang, who has been working in Beijing for a company that makes historical television dramas. “China is not the same China I remember. People’s values have changed.”

The media business that he recalls focusing only on propaganda is now driven by ratings. Deals that depended only on relationships now also require creativity and money. “People think in a more complicated way. I’m more straightforward now, but they’re all zigzagging,” said Huang, who also goes by Derek.

Even the village here of his father and grandfather, just 20 miles outside the central Chinese city of Xian, where his parents now live, has been marked by change. Most of the old-style houses with gently sloping roofs and mud walls have been replaced by modern brick and tile boxes. The street named after his late grandfather, a village leader who helped build the local irrigation system, is now just a numbered road.

Caotang used to be blessed by three crops a year. But graffiti attest to the recent sale of village land to a developer who has cut off water pumps, reducing the harvest to two crops a year. Across the main road from the village, residents can glimpse brand-new townhouses that overlook a golf course. The houses start at $280,000 — to most villagers, an unthinkable sum.

“A cousin told me many of the young people in the village did not want to be farmers anymore, so they didn’t oppose the sale of the land,” Huang said. “Many who received money spent it on motorcycles.”

Annual culture clash

At Chinese New Year, the village’s population of 5,000 can grow to up to 10 times that number. Some traditions persevere: On Wednesday, a New Year’s address from village officials will be carried to homes by loudspeaker. Officials will make their rounds delivering liquor and pastries to dozens of village elders.

Next week, the village square will fill with people selling paper and silk lanterns, plastic toys, cold rice noodles and sweet desserts. A sign above an outdoor stage, erected during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, declares that art and literature should be for the common people, not the bourgeoisie. But traditional opera performances are now supplemented by amplified pop music. For the first time, there will be a village-wide basketball tournament, to make the traditional holiday more relevant for younger residents.

For Huang, going home means visiting his village relatives whenever he returns to his parent’s apartment in Xian. He has been trying to persuade a poor cousin to go out and find work.

“My plan this year is to add a few rooms to the house and then go out to look for a construction job,” said the cousin, Huang Gang, 35, from the bed where he spends most of his time. “Can you tell me where I should go look for work?” he asked his more successful cousin.

Huang He, meanwhile, has difficult career decisions of his own. He has walked away from his Beijing job and plans to return to the United States in order to make more use of his valuable green card.

Some parents lose faith in foreign studies

That’s a prospect that worries his father, Huang Ruike, a music professor who has changed jobs only twice in his life. He can’t quite understand how his amply educated son has switched jobs four times already.

“Many years ago, I was very proud of sending both my children out to the U.S. to study. Many of my friends were jealous. But now that feeling has faded,” Huang Ruike said over a lunch of fish and scallops.

Turning to his son, he added, “The American education you and your sister received is no doubt very positive. But many of your peers who did not study overseas, they all seem to be better off. Many of them were not as outstanding as you were in school. But those who didn’t leave got caught up in the fast-paced development of China. If you didn’t choose to go out, you’d probably have a car, a house, a wife.”

Those are crucial barometers of success to most Chinese families, as opposed to the abstract ideas that Huang has in mind: a dream career and job satisfaction. His father, after all, gave up conducting and composing for the stability of teaching.

Nevertheless, Huang’s parents are proud of him and his sister. And this being a new year, they tell him so.

“When your sister used to say, before the 1990s, that she wanted to study in the U.S., I always said, ‘Stop dreaming!’ ” Huang’s mother, Wang Lianyun, chimed in. “But now look at her. She didn’t stop dreaming, and it happened.”