双语:"蚁族"生存状况引来两会关注

【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.

【中文译文】

在政府官员聚会北京出席今年“两会”期间，北京郊区的一些村庄有点出人意料地成了人们在热议年青人就业形势严峻这一话题时的关注点。

沈阳大学举办的一场毕业生招聘会这些在北京市北部的村庄居住着大批自称为“蚁族”的年青人。由于工作辛苦、居住地拥挤寒酸，他们给自己取了这么个绰号。本周正在北京开会的一些全国人大代表和政协委员周四举行了一个新闻发布会，重点介绍了失业大学毕业生的困境，并呼吁对现行教育体系进行重大改革，他们说这一体系未能将大学生培养成符合就业市场需要的人。这些代表和委员提出的改革建议包括，增加职业技能培训以及加强学校与用人单位之间的互动等。

全国政协委员葛剑雄说，这些“蚂蚁”的生存状况可能很容易令人担忧，并有可能引发人们的不满情绪。他说，政府和社会对此必须予以高度关注。

本月早些时候，一些全国政协委员考察了“蚁族”们聚居的一个村庄。其中几位委员说，当听到两个共住一间五平方米小屋的学生唱起一支反映其艰难生活的自编歌曲时，他们被感动得哭了。

政府的统计数据显示，去年有87%的大学毕业生找到了工作。但一些毕业生怀疑这一数字的真实性，而且他们说能找到的都是一些工资往往低得只能让人勉强维持生活的工作。

大学毕业生的高失业率很大程度上是过去十年大学迅速扩招造成的，这导致入学人数急剧增加，但学校的课程设置却未能及时进行调整，以便使学生获得必要的就业技能。

政府官员们已经承认了问题的存在。温家宝总理在人大开幕时所作的政府工作报告中承诺，要调整大学的课程设置，以满足就业需要及经济和社会发展需要。他还宣布，政府计划今年斥资60亿美元以刺激就业，重点帮助应届大学毕业生找工作。

“蚁族”一词是北京对外经济贸易大学教授廉思最早提出来的。2007年至2009年间，他对北京地区的600名大学毕业生进行了调查，他发现这些人的平均月收入相当于300美元。

廉思说，这些大学毕业生的生活非常艰难，更糟糕的是，在他们的身后是一百多万个中国家庭，这些家庭把孩子送进大学，希望他们能在大城市里过上好日子。

小月河是年轻大学毕业生的聚居地之一，这是北京北郊一个只有一条街的破败小村。村子的一头是一条小沟渠，另外一头是排得密密麻麻的像宿舍一样的屋子、便宜饭馆和泥泞的小路。数千名外地人住在这里，其中很多是来自中国各地的大学毕业生。

24岁的赵磊就是其中的一个，他2008年从北京交通大学毕业，学的是计算机科学。赵磊和另外五人合租了一间12平方米的屋子。他说，对大多数住在这里的人来说，我们选择住在这里，是因为没有其他选择；我们刚进入社会，只能用自己微薄的收入租这样的地方。

赵磊说，他很高兴得知自己所属的“蚁族”终于引起了社会的普遍关注，不过他也说，他们需要的不是议论，而是不会让他们的梦想被残酷的现实打碎的实实在在的帮助。

廉思教授估计，在北京周边的各聚居村里，住着10多万大学毕业生。由于全国各地迅速扩招的大学有越来越多的毕业生涌入北京和上海等大城市，最近几年这一数字增长迅速。很大一部分住在北京周边聚居村的大学毕业生来自中国农村地区。有工作的人大多是在有“中国的硅谷”之称的中关村从事临时性IT相关工作或从事服务业。

当地官员说，他们正在努力改善现状。唐家岭的官员最近推出了一项宏大的计划，将投资六亿美元对这一地区进行改造，把简屋陋舍改造成能容纳两万名大学毕业生的高层公寓楼。