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To be employed? Get sweet voice first
By Jessie Tao (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-01-05 16:20
Finding a job in today's China has proved to be so difficult and out-going, that owning an alluring face is not enough. You might have to iron out your coarse voice.
Faced with tremendous job-hunting pressure, a growing number of female college graduates in Beijing are seeking "voice beauty" surgery in local hospitals, hoping to gain the favor of the interviewers with a sweet voice, the Beijing-based newspaper, The First, reported.
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College graduates crowd at a job fair in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province, December 25, 2005. . Some 4.1 million university students are expected to finish their college studies and enter the job market in China in 2006, 700,000 more than that of 2005, Xinhua reported. [newsphoto]
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Doctor Yu with the ENT (ear, nose, and throat) Department of the Chinese PLA General Hospital told the newspaper that, ever since the launch of its Voice Medical Science Clinic in last October, on average 40 people visit the clinic a day, with many of them seeking advice on the procedure of altering coarse voices.
Physicians say that at least half of the visitors are female college graduates who hope to get a sweet voice to attract their future employers. For this, many are willing to take the risk to go under the knife. Some girls even have gone so far as to demand a voice as articulate and attractive as that of Teresa Teng (a native Taiwan Province-based pop diva famed for singing love melodies), Doctor Yu said.
Once ensured of employment by state firms, college students are now under growing pressure to find a good job. In 2005, 3.38 million students graduated from colleges and universities, a 20 per cent increase from a year ago. China's education authorities estimate there will be 4 million college graduates this year.
Compared with their male counterparts, female students face an uphill pressure to find jobs, as Chinese employers tend to turn away women for physical reasons. Where female graduates are employed, they are often judged by appearance, stature, and figure. A beautiful face is certainly a plus. To beat others, some females have gone so far as to cut their faces and bodies, which has ensured a growing business for hospitals' beauty surgery section.
A female graduate told the newspaper: "I am an English major. I applied for the position of PR in a foreign-invested company, but was rejected just because of my hoarse voice, even though I have passed the appearance appraisal and the written exam. That's why I made my mind to beautify my voice."
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