Editor’s note: There was a time when Chinese university students would only consider internships at major technology companies or in traditional industries. Yet, Gen Z students appear to be keeping their options open, with many broadening their horizons in recent years by spending their summer vacation working at farms, in logistics centers and warehouses, or for online souvenir stores. Here, some of them share their experiences.

It takes 50 minutes for Liu Yuyang to travel by high-speed train from Xi’an, the capital of China’s northwestern Shaanxi province, to Foping, a rural county about 290 kilometers south in Hanzhong. When the train finally emerges from the darkness of the lengthy Qinling Tunnel, she feels a sudden rush of excitement.

Pulling into the train station on a wet July day, she takes in the breathtaking scenery, noticing dozens of small, scattered cabins nestling among mist-shrouded mountains. She marvels at its otherworldly charm, confident in the belief that she’s landed a “mystical internship.”

Liu is a third-year student at Xi’an International Studies University majoring in tourism management with a minor in English and Russian language studies. She was drawn to the countryside after coming across an advertisement for “New Peasants,” a government initiative that connects students, content creators, and freelancers with internship opportunities at rural businesses.

The ad was for a position at a village hostel, which Liu felt offered an ideal opportunity to gain firsthand, practical knowledge while experiencing life in the Chinese countryside.

At the same time, Xu Wen, who studies archival science at Northwest University in Xi’an, was also arriving in Foping to begin work at the hostel. She had been looking for a month-long internship far removed from her college major. “Only by having new experiences can you further yourself,” she says.

During her time at the hostel, Xu had to work the front desk, prepare guest rooms, and learn how to manage a tourism business. Although largely unrelated to her studies in the city, she actually discovered a topic for her thesis: how archival management can benefit rural cultural tourism.

The idea came to Xu when she noticed that the rooms in the hostel were not only named for wild animals native to the area — the panda, takin, snub-nosed monkey, and crested ibis — but also supplied with scientific materials for guests that introduced these flagship species along with Foping’s geography and chorography. Outings and other activities also included local cultural elements, while the county’s trademark “medicinal dogwood wine” was available for sale in its store.

Xu now believes that the way to resolve the issue of “homogeneity” in China’s rural tourism lies in tapping into local culture, to carve out a niche. This requires the effective use of physical and online archives, she says, adding that her experience in Foping has “awakened her imagination” on the potential for archival science.

Now in its third year, the “New Peasants” program has received applications from thousands of university students, according to the online travel agency Trip.com, which works with the initiative to provide opportunities at rural hostels. “Young people’s yearning for the countryside is more than what we could have imagined. The vigor they bring with them to rural areas, as well as their willingness to work hard out in the country, also exceeded our expectations,” the company said in a statement.

Recharging batteries

Cui Jia, who studies anthropology at Shanghai University, began a three-month internship on March 10 at Ecoland Club Farm, a suburban community space for families in Shanghai’s southern Fengxian District. After being tasked with laying rocks in an insect-themed area of the farm, she quickly discovered her co-workers were mostly undergraduate or graduate students from China’s elite Project 211 group of universities.

Coming to the countryside for internships has become an option for many people “at a crossroads” who perhaps are unsure of what path to follow or want to broaden their employment prospects, she says.

At the beginning, Cui would follow the farm workers into the fields. However, she often felt that the more she tried to help out, the busier the others would become; even when given simple tasks, she would make a mistake. The knowledge she had gleaned from textbooks suddenly seemed far away.

She initially chose the internship because she wanted to pursue a research project looking at how suburban farms provide individuals with emotional value through agricultural activities, relaxation, and people-to-people exchanges. In the end, the experience led her to think more about her own choices.

“Farms are like … a place to recharge your batteries. Even though you might go back to your original life path after the internship, you’ll still learn some things,” Cui says. “Those things will follow you for a long time, and you might be so affected that you’ll eventually go into agricultural work.”

Qiu Tian, who was also among the interns this year at Ecoland Club Farm, gained a slightly different perspective. He was placed with a group of male farm workers mostly in their 70s who repeatedly attempted to dissuade him from following their path into agriculture, saying the industry held few prospects.

Despite this, Qiu feels he learned many things he ordinarily wouldn’t have as a student in Shanghai University’s Chinese Department, such as techniques for plowing a field. He says he also found other interns had developed an interest in pursuing jobs related to farming and agriculture.

The fact that landing an internship at the farm is no easy task possibly reflects the demand for places. Based on the recruitment information posted by FoodThink, a Chinese agricultural information platform, candidates for its Ecological Agriculture Internship Program have to fill out a detailed application form, followed by several rounds of interviews with farm supervisors. Successful applicants can intern for three months to a year.

Gao Meiying, who manages the program, says the platform has completed three rounds of recruitment since November 2021, with 64 out of 170 candidates receiving internships in the third year. “There are more and more applicants every year,” she says, adding that interns not only gain knowledge, mentors, and friends but also get to explore new versions of themselves.

According to careers advisers at Shanghai International Studies University and East China Normal University in Shanghai, Gen Z students are making increasingly diverse internship choices, and maintaining an open and proactive attitude to job searches. However, the experiences of Qiu and Cui demonstrate the complex employment environment for fresh graduates, with some education experts suggesting that universities should provide broader internship resources that allow students to plot their own individualistic development trajectory.

Meanwhile, Liu and Xu’s internship experiences at the village hostel demonstrate the synthesis, and potential conflict, between coursework and practical experience. Liu used the time to meld tourism management with language studies, and Xu learned how archival studies can be combined with local culture. Both takeaways reveal the need for universities to emphasize interdisciplinary education, encouraging students to explore fields outside their major.

For many young Chinese people, the goal of an internship is not always clear. However, it appears that a growing number today care more about gaining real-world experience than simply following a well-trodden path through the wilderness of working life.

(Cui Jia is a pseudonym.)

Reported by Xiao Yawen.

A version of this article originally appeared in Shanghai Observer. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

Translator: Marianne Gunnarsson; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao.

(Header image: An intern at work in a hostel located in Foping, Shaanxi province, 2024. Courtesy of the interviewees)