View from a Remote Hubei City: a raw conversation with an unemployed youth

For two decades, Chinese born in the 1990s and 2000s spent their entire lives studying for a college degree. Now, there is nothing for them.

In 2023, China’s statistics bureau published a youth unemployment rate of 21 percent. The number was so high that officials stopped publishing it, and the bureau eventually changed the way it was calculated. If you talk to educators and economists in China, many will tell you the real numbers are much higher. There are roughly 11 million Chinese college graduates each year, and many know they will not find a job. Instead, discussions at universities center around the three “tests”: kaogong, kaobian, and kaoyan—referring to the civil service, a job in the state sector, or graduate school. Lately, spots in these three sectors are now often harder than the chances of an average American student getting into Harvard. So what do Chinese do? Your guess is as good as theirs.

These days, the West has been rightly fixated on China’s engineering prowess. There are not enough people in Washington and Silicon Valley who truly understand why China’s innovation system performs so well, and I’m hoping to do my part to elucidate it. Before Enshi, I had spent several weeks reporting on the Chinese robotics industry (more on that soon), a world brimming with so much dynamism it reminded me of the hungry, ambitious China of the aughts. Yet beyond the first and second-tier cities, where much of the robot race is unfolding, lies a grimmer reality. The AI race is being waged with the top 1% of the 1% of talent in China; the rest of the 99.9% and the humanities majors have much less to look forward to. In the fourth and fifth-tier cities, one of most arresting problems in China comes into sharp relief: the extreme mismatch between college graduates and available jobs.

Last December, I spent a week in Enshi, a fifth-tier city in the province of Hubei, just a few hours drive from the city of Wuhan. The town is home to roughly 800,000 people and is known for its jagged cliffs and cured meats. I had come as part of the intellectual Xiang Biao’s tour of Chinese universities (see my interview with him here) and spent most of the time interviewing students at the local university. This a transcript of one interview, with a graduate I’ll refer to as Zhang, where the topic of how unemployment is affecting Zhang and his classmates are discussed at length (To save time, you can skip to the middle of the interview).

Zhang was born in the year 2000. He lived his early years in a village just outside Enshi, and graduated in 2022 with a business administration degree from the local Hubei Minzu University. He then spent two years in the military in the far west province of Xinjiang, but found the PLA stifling and ideologically draining. When we met, he was back in Enshi living with his parents. His current goal is to work as a civil servant, which requires a year of studying for the ultra competitive examinations. The chances he will make it in are probably less than 1%.

I sense a general foreboding in Zhang and among this coming generation, an anxiety and aimlessness rooted in this structural mismatch between youthful optimism and opportunity. One of the ways Zhang manifests hope is through the culture he consumed. He is obsessed with a celebrity interview series known as Thirteen Invitations. The show is widely watched in China and is hosted by the liberal-leaning intellectual Xu Zhiyuan. In 2019, Xiang Biao appeared on one of the episodes, which is where the young Zhang discovered Xiang Biao, and why I was able to meet him.

Chang:
Okay, so I’ll guide you a little bit. First, let’s start with your upbringing. What was it like growing up for you?

Zhang:
I grew up in the countryside. The place you see now—Minzu University, the hotel you’re staying at—is basically the central area of Enshi. My parents didn’t bring me into the city until elementary school because their situation here wasn’t stable yet. So when I was little, I lived with my grandparents. I didn’t go to kindergarten—people of my generation were similar. Those who grew up fully in the city went to kindergarten; people like us, who moved from the countryside into town, often didn’t.

The countryside felt very different. I lived with my grandparents, and then suddenly moving into the city left a deep impression on me. I still remember a grandmother who lived right at the entrance to our village. I was closer to her than to my own grandmother because she lived right outside our door. In summer, she would buy me one-yuan creamy ice pops—the soft, pudding-like kind. Her own grandchildren lived far away, but she treated me like her own. After I moved into town, I kept thinking about her. Even after moving to the city, I missed her a lot. She’s passed away now.

Chang:
You said you moved to Enshi in elementary school. What was your life in Enshi like?

Zhang:
Enshi developed quickly. I was born in 2000, and one strong memory is the 2008 Olympics—we watched them on TV. It wasn’t until middle school and high school that I started forming my own views.

For example, by high school we were buying Nike and Adidas. That meant you began to develop aesthetic awareness. My family’s financial conditions were okay, and by then Enshi already had those stores. In middle school I mostly wore domestic brands. [NB: There were a lot of domestic knock-offs of Nike and Adidas in China]

Chang:
Did you listen to Western music?

Zhang:
Not really. Near the end of junior middle school, our teacher showed us Dead Poets Society. That was probably the first English-language film I ever watched. We had just started learning English. That movie left a very deep impression.

By high school, smartphones were becoming common—around 2013 or 2014. We had an iPad at home, and suddenly you could search for whatever interested you. It was a kind of awakening. The mobile internet, trends, information—everything arrived.

By 2018 or 2019, food delivery and e-commerce really exploded. That was when daily life started changing fast. I remember watching films on my iPad. At some point I didn’t want to watch movies anymore and wanted to watch a nature documentary about China—landscapes and natural scenery. I searched and happened to come across programs on Tencent Video with Xu Zhiyuan interviewing Xiang Biao. [This is Thirteen Invitations, the very popular celebrity interview program] That was my first exposure to them, and it really shocked my worldview.

Chang:
How?

Zhang:
What shocked me first was Xu himself. He didn’t look like any authority figure I’d grown up with—leaders in suits and leather shoes. He wore slippers, his shirt half unbuttoned, totally relaxed. That alone was shocking. In my family, you’re not allowed to go out in slippers.

Beyond appearance, the conversation itself was striking. They talked about ideas like “the nearby,” “immediate gratification.” You understood the words—they were speaking Chinese—but you didn’t yet understand the logic behind them.

Chang:
What was going on in your life at that moment?

Zhang:
I had just graduated from high school. For me, it felt like liberation from a very regimented life—waking up at six, schedules packed until ten at night, endless problem sets. Suddenly in university, no one controlled you anymore. You had free time, autonomy—but you didn’t know what to do with it.

I felt empty and bored. I watched films, read books. Then I started watching earlier seasons of Thirteen Invitations, and reading Xu Zhiyuan’s books. I felt a strong resonance—it described feelings I couldn’t articulate.

Most of my classmates were playing games—League of Legends, Dota. I played too, but I couldn’t really get into it anymore. Watching these interviews sparked a deeper curiosity. When Xu interviewed filmmakers like Jiang Wen, I’d look them up and watch their films. That habit stuck.

Unlike high school’s utilitarian studying, this was knowledge pursued freely. No one forced you. That made all the difference.

Chang:
When did you start having a clearer plan for your future? When you were in high school, did you know you wanted to go to university?

Zhang:
At that time, no. After school they still required you to study. There were cram classes. [Refers to afterschool classes that prepare you for the college entrance exam]

Chang:
Did you start attending those classes?

Zhang:
I didn’t. My friends did. Our high school was a boarding school. From Monday to Friday we stayed on campus, and on weekends we had time off. When I went home, I’d do my homework first, then go play basketball, hang out, or watch movies. My parents gave me very little pressure.

Some classmates had very clear goals. Usually it depended on family circumstances. Students from very remote villages matured earlier. They felt they couldn’t let anyone down. When they hit difficult problems, they wouldn’t give up. They’d keep asking teachers again and again.

People like us were more indifferent. If we couldn’t solve something, we’d just give up. Now I’d call it polarization. The students who loved studying became extremely anxious if their grades stalled. People like us were “lying flat”—indifferent.

Chang:
Did that ever change?

Zhang:
Yes. By my senior year, no one was playing with me anymore haha. I thought, “This won’t work.” Around that time, recruiters came to villages promoting excavator training—learning to operate heavy machinery. I remember it clearly. My family would tell me, “If you don’t study properly, just go learn to operate an excavator or pick up a trade—I won’t care anymore.”

That’s when the pressure increased. It was like pulling you back onto the “right track”—the exam track. The college entrance exam track. You’re supposed to follow that path, get good results, and go to university.

Chang:
So around 2018 you find the “right track,” and how did you do on the college entrance exam?

Zhang:
It was okay. I got into Minzu University. [Minzu is ranked #276 in one Chinese university ranking, but there are worse schools in Enshi.] I wasn’t outstanding, but I was satisfied. Just having a university to attend felt enough.

The really strong students went to top-tier universities—Wuhan, Beijing, places like Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing Aeronautics, maybe Northeastern University or Harbin Institute of Technology. There were some truly outstanding students, but I was average.

I’ve chosen to take the civil service exam. After graduating, people constantly say “degrees are useless.” In Beijing they say “985 universities are everywhere.” [This is a bit like the “Ivy League” for China] If you’re not from a 985 school, opportunities are limited.

In cities like ours, we study a lot but have fewer paths. China’s education system produces too many university graduates. Even our counselors said the government never anticipated this. In my parents’ generation, graduating from university guaranteed job placement. Now there are too many graduates, and no one knows how to absorb them.

That’s why there are even more master’s and PhD students now. Some of my middle school classmates never went to high school or university. With family capital, they married early, and live decent lives. But for people like us who studied, you read so many books, you know there are bigger cities beyond Enshi, a bigger world waiting—but you don’t have the ability, or the confidence to go. You want to stay, but Enshi doesn’t seem to want you. Jobs are limited, positions are few.

Chang:
What do you mean Enshi “doesn’t want you?”

Zhang:
I feel Enshi can’t contain me. There are no big companies, no opportunities I understand. So many young people like us—undergraduates—are pushed toward Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, or coastal cities, where wages are higher. Enshi’s average salary is only about 3,000 yuan a month.

Chang:
After graduating, you went into the military. Can you briefly talk about what you were thinking at the time—why you went?

Zhang:
It’s simple. For young people like us, the military has a natural appeal—there’s a halo effect. The life inside is monotonous, but it trains you in many ways—patience, steadiness, learning to hold your nerve. You learn things, train your body, and deal with real people and concrete daily life.

The life is very routine, very structured. It’s like you switch back from the looseness of university to something like high school—except not studying. Just a disciplined, orderly life.

Chang:
Why did you ultimately leave?

Zhang:
Because it wasn’t free. Everyone wears the same clothes, does the same things every day. The hierarchy is strict: you must obey orders and follow command—that’s literally the slogan.

Chang:
Do you think the shows you watched and the books you read during university gave you this desire for freedom?

Zhang:
Yes. It liberated your thinking. Inside the military you feel you and others aren’t on the same wavelength. Even now that I’m back, I still like reading. I keep watching Xu’s show. I basically buy every new Xu book when it comes out.

Chang:
So what are you doing now?

Zhang:
I stayed in Enshi. I didn’t take the graduate entrance exam, and I didn’t really want to work. What mattered most was staying here—my familiar circles, my familiar life. I can live comfortably in Enshi, and I don’t want to go out and hustle

Many of my classmates left for Wuhan, the coastal provinces, or Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Big cities offer more opportunity and convenience, but the pressure is intense. I have a relative—my uncle—who studied his way out. He was the best student in our village, earned a PhD, and built his career in Shanghai at a major company. He hasn’t come back. He once said, “I pay millions in taxes every year. In Enshi I wouldn’t even earn the amount of tax I pay.” There was no reason for him to return.

Enshi feels polarized. A small group holds most of the wealth, often from demolition and relocation compensation tied to infrastructure projects. Some people become rich very quickly this way. Another path is the system—civil service or government work: stable, not wealthy, not poor, essentially middle class.

That’s why I enrolled in a civil service exam program and gave myself one year. If I pass, I’ll live a stable life here. If I don’t, I’ll leave and try something else while I’m still young.

I’m not chasing sudden success or wealth. I’m a small-town youth. Moving step by step feels more real than instant breakthroughs.

Chang:
Everyone is talking about youth unemployment these days. Do you feel it?

Zhang:
Yes. You can see it. In Beijing, delivery riders and ride-hailing drivers are getting younger. Even here, if you’re hungry, we can order food delivery and see who brings it—the age range is wide.

Food delivery has a low barrier to entry. If you’re older, as long as you can use a smartphone, you can deliver. If you’re young—high school graduate, even if you haven’t studied much—as long as you’re 18, can use a phone and ride an e-bike, you can do it. But it’s very dangerous.

People are impatient now. If I order food, I want it within 30 minutes. Once it’s over 30 minutes, every minute feels unbearable—you start obsessing over “timeliness.” But you forget the delivery worker’s situation.

I have a close friend—actually a middle school classmate—who delivers food in Beijing. He went to Beijing to deliver food because his education isn’t good enough for other jobs. When you learn about it, you realize the delivery system has constraints. He told me there’s an upper limit to how many orders you can take at once. On Ele.me, [one of three major food delivery companies, the others are Meituan and JD] the max might be eight orders at a time. If you take more, you won’t be able to deliver, and it will hurt customer experience, so the system constrains you. But you can also take orders from other platforms at the same time, right? Like Meituan. The platform can’t really supervise that. He showed me the apps—JD, Ele.me, Meituan—all on one phone.

Ride-hailing is similar: drivers can accept orders from multiple platforms.

Chang: So that’s the life of your friend who didn’t go to college, how about college graduates?

Zhang:
Yeah, back to unemployment: you notice young people are doing more and more jobs with low entry barriers. For undergrads there’s that “Kong Yiji” meme people are talking about. [Kong Yiji is a hapless character from a novel by Lu Xun. Set in the Qing dynasty, Kong Yiji fails the examination system and falls into poverty and alcoholism. The character became a viral meme for many unemployed youths.] Undergrads feel proud, but they don’t have real power, and they can’t bring themselves to lower their status, saying things like: “You want me to deliver food? I can’t.”

Of course, some people—undergrads or even grads—do delivery as a transition. I thought about it too: if I really can’t find a job, I can’t keep asking my parents for money.

Chang:
So you might consider it as a transition.

Zhang:
Yes, in Enshi it’s very obvious. young people are filling more of these service jobs—restaurants, supermarkets, bars, waitstaff. You don’t need much specialized knowledge; you just learn on the job, as long as you can speak and you’re physically able. These jobs will always be needed, and if you don’t do them, someone else will. But every year so many university students graduate.

And it’s not just Hubei Minzu University—we also have Hubei Enshi College (which split off from Minzu University’s former affiliated college), plus Enshi Vocational and Technical College, and all those vocational and junior college graduates. They all graduate too.

The job openings can never catch up with the number of graduates. Supply exceeds demand. Society only needs so many people—there’s only so big a “cake,” and everyone’s fighting over it.

Chang:
How do you and your classmates talk about this? I’m curious. Do you all share this view, this consensus about employment?

Zhang:
Yes. After you graduate, the pressure becomes immediate: I’ve graduated. There’s also a shared idea—borrowed from the U.S.—that once you’re an adult, you shouldn’t keep relying on your parents. [This is becoming less true now. According to Pew, more than half of U.S. parents say they helped their young adult children financially in 2023.] It depends on family circumstances, but especially for men, there’s a feeling that you should be independent.

My classmates—some have good family conditions, some average. Either they go elsewhere like Wuhan because Enshi can’t keep them, or they stay and do limited local work. Enshi’s cost of living is high, and you still face buying a house, a car. Also, a lot of young people here marry early. Why? Because marriage is often tied to family resources. Sometimes the man marries into the woman’s family if her family is better off—then there’s a kind of “asset recombination”: both families pool money to buy a house, start something, and so on. That gives capital.

But if you’re just a young person who just entered society, fighting alone, you don’t have that. You’re cautious: “What if I fail?” People also tried entrepreneurship. Enshi had some policies encouraging student startups—loans, subsidies, even interest-free. At the beginning you might make money because the government and school subsidize you, but later many lose money because their capability doesn’t reach the level needed to be profitable. So a lot of my middle school classmates married early.

Chang:
Those who married and stayed in Enshi, what work do they do?

Zhang:
Some got support from their parents—families that already had businesses. Or they do ride-hailing, or other not-so-great jobs. A classmate’s older brother did car rentals—wedding cars, tourist rentals. Because the family had capital and early savings, he followed into that industry. He earns quite a lot now, even though he didn’t study much. That’s why there’s this widespread feeling now: “Studying is useless.” People say, “If I’d gone out earlier, when the economy was better, I could’ve made money. Why did I study?”

But I still think reading more is good—it gives you a different feeling. You only study for a few years, but your life after school is long. Why not study while you can?

Chang:
So back to your civil service exam. Many students mentioned how competitive it’s gotten these past two days. How do you explain why it’s so competitive?

Zhang:
For example, today is November 29, right? Tomorrow is November 30, the national civil service exam registration. The applicant-to-admission ratio is extremely high. One post might have hundreds of people competing. For example, I applied for a civilian position in the military system. I can show you: they recruit one person. [Zhang shows me his application portal for a military administration position in Beijing. There are 656 applicants for this one position so far with two or three days to go.]

It’s a Beijing job in logistics support services—this is what I applied for.

Civil service people have a saying: “Tsinghua and Peking University aren’t as good as having guts.” Meaning: dare to think, dare to do. Some people apply to be a police chief in places like Xinjiang or Alxa [region in inner Mongolia]—crossing half of China.

From Enshi to Xinjiang, or Enshi to Beijing—that’s a huge leap. You’re giving up a lot for this job. Competition is the first problem. And this screenshot is from two or three days before the deadline—one slot, 656 applicants. It’ll only increase.

The most intense competition really exploded after the pandemic. Nationwide there was explosive growth in either civil service exams or graduate entrance exams. News reports compare these two every year: either “more people taking the civil service exam,” or “more people taking the graduate exam.”

Chang:
Have you noticed this shift among young people in Enshi—as in, before, some might have tried entrepreneurship or found a job in the private sector, now more and more are focusing on civil service and grad school.

Zhang:
Before the pandemic—before I even started university—things still felt okay. My family had mentioned becoming a civil servant, but it wasn’t the dominant path. Now it’s become a craze.

For young people in Enshi, stability matters most. A government job is stable and respectable. In a small place like this, civil servants have long been seen as people you beg to get things done—qiú tā bàn shì (“beg them to handle it”). Only after Xi Jinping came to power and anti-corruption campaigns began did the political environment feel cleaner. But the older mindset hasn’t really changed. If someone becomes an official, people still say, “Your ancestors’ grave must be smoking”—meaning you must have accumulated huge virtue in a past life to have an official position in this life.

Some of my classmates have already entered the system. They’re exhausted. A friend in public security works incredibly hard—it’s not the life he imagined. But once you put on that uniform, for small-town kids like us, it carries authority and even fear. That comes from how we’re raised.

That’s why the civil service exam is so competitive. It feels like a choice without alternatives. Young people are confused; they don’t know what they want, and everyone starts looking to the same thing.

When I entered university, it was different. I didn’t think about the future at all. I never went to lectures. After the gaokao, we just played—drank, went out, explored Enshi. I assumed that after graduation, I’d naturally find a job. I had no sense of “life planning.” I was young, and I thought that was enough.

Chang:
Besides increased competition, what else do you changed between you and the students now?

Zhang:
Everything feels more utilitarian. Phones have become too powerful, and values have shifted. If you open the location tag for Hubei Minzu University, you’ll see students singing and livestreaming— [Zhang showed me some of his classmates who have become live streamers and influencers on Douyin, Chinese TikTok, and Little Red Book even as they were in college. They all look to be attractive women with hundreds of thousands of followers.]

When I entered university in 2019, Douyin wasn’t something that could make people rich so quickly. Now even local students run accounts—630,000 likes isn’t unusual. Society feels completely different.

Chang: But some of these influencers still take the civil service exams?

Zhang:
Yes—and they vlog about it. Some people build content around their exam journey. Being an influencer doesn’t conflict with being a civil servant or a graduate student.

Students now buy drones, selfie sticks, filming gear—this has become everyday life. It’s not necessarily bad. Douyin creates a space to share hobbies, reading, talents. Traffic matters, but you also meet people.

The big change is that as long as you have some talent—singing, dancing—people immediately think about monetizing it. Livestream selling is common, and students at our school do it too.

Chang:
Do you think the pandemic mattered here? Comparing your 2019 state and students now?

Zhang:
Yes. During the pandemic, universities were sealed off. Students were locked inside dorms, meals were delivered. Hubei was shut down quickly because of travel between Wuhan and places like Enshi. That period cut people off from one another.

It intensified isolation. Some people were already introverted; during lockdown they spent even more time alone with their phones, online, not interacting face to face.

After the pandemic, people stopped talking. Even students in the same class didn’t know each other’s names. In class, everyone looks at their phone. There’s a saying now: your phone understands you better than people do.

Even dating became more pragmatic.

Chang:
Pragmatic in what sense—based on interests and benefits?

Zhang:
It’s no longer about “pure love,” not that idealized kind. It’s more about whether you get along, whether your values and outlook match. But it’s also very utilitarian. It’s like: if I’m getting married, I want a better life; if I’m choosing a partner, we should be well matched in background.

People set standards first—appearance, height, conditions. Are you at least 1.8 meters tall? If you’re under 1.8, you’re not even considered. What’s strange is that there’s no longer that sense of spontaneous love, that accidental affection.

Before the pandemic, things were actually okay. Back in high school, there was early romance—people dated. Two people could get along, talk, share feelings, fall in love. Back then, mentally, people were mostly okay. There were depressed students too， mainly because of pressure from the gaokao. The exam system doesn’t suit everyone.

But after the pandemic, everything changed. Take eating together—now you sit at a table and there’s a divider between you. People were isolated, separated. After a while, people got used to it.

It left behind a kind of social aftereffect—a psychological scar. People adapted to being alone. And mental problems escalated. Things went to extremes.

Chang:

You say your world was expanded by TV programs like Thirteen Invitations, but this is through a screen. Your real world feels smaller, more constrained. There are two “walls”: one is your personal life, and the other is very concrete—jobs, housing, the future. If I put it bluntly, these shows are still just entertainment. So I’m curious—can these two worlds affect each other?

Zhang:
They can. If you just treat them as time-killers—like watching videos to fight boredom—then they’re no different from scrolling Douyin.

But after watching these programs, people like Xu Zhiyuan and his guests have a kind of personal charisma. Their life experiences can’t be copied, but there are things you can draw from. [Xu interviews a wide variety of characters on his show including comedians, well-known scholars, anime-geeks] We grew up with very traditional ideas—being faithful, being serious about love, taking responsibility. Seeing a different way of living didn’t mean I wanted to imitate it. It just opened my thinking, made it more flexible. The “wall” you spoke of feels less rigid.

Zhang: Where we live now—this small place—students are under enormous pressure. Some commit suicide because of depression. Even at Minzu University, it happens.

Chang:
What pressure are you referring to?

Zhang:
Competition for the gaokao and the civil service exam and general confusion about life, conflicts with others. In dorm life, conflict is inevitable. You can’t avoid it—you’re living together. If you view everything through a utilitarian lens, it can feel like a barrier.

Chang:
So you’re drawing a line between Thirteen Invitations and Douyin, which is more utilitarian? One expands your thinking, the other narrows it?

Zhang:
Exactly. I barely use Douyin—maybe before sleep. You can use it, but you can’t let it consume you. There’s even a high school student in Enshi with over a million followers. Not even graduated yet.

Chang: How did she do it?

Zhang:
I don’t know. Maybe she fits the current beauty aesthetics. Most big influencers are girls. But this reshapes values—people start thinking: I don’t need to study; I can become an influencer. I’m not saying Douyin is bad or that watching Thirteen Invitations makes me superior. It’s just a choice.

Chang:
Let’s end by talking again about the future. How do you feel about it? Are you confident? Anxious?

Zhang:
…I think I’m more optimistic than others. I’m not afraid. My only real anxiety is preparing for the civil service exam. Once you enter that competition, it erases your individuality. You stop playing basketball, listening to music. The system doesn’t need all that.

It’s like the gaokao—just another version. Many people spend years preparing for one position. If I don’t pass, I can go to another city, try basic work—even delivery work as a transition. I’m not obsessed with success or wealth. I’m just a small-town youth. I know my limits. Step by step feels more meaningful than instant success.

Chang:
What kind of work and life would make you feel satisfied?

Zhang:
A regular life. A regular job. That’s why civil service appeals to me—nine to five, weekends off. Time to play basketball, live life. Most other jobs chase profit relentlessly. I’m not that anxious. Many young people are. Some go to lectures just asking: How do I stop being anxious? Give me a method.

But scholars like Xiang Biao really care. They do fieldwork. They listen. That’s humanistic responsibility. If you read more, watch more films, shift perspective, many anxieties dissolve. That’s why I respect him—he’s grounded, standing on the land, doing real research.

Chang:
Thank you, Zhang. I’ve learned a lot.