Unusual new careers profitable but often unregulated

Only one thing is common among today's unusual new career options - their diversity. New occupations are surprising people with their strange job descriptions, such as online porn appraiser or human punch bag. Experts warn that people should be cautious of such careers.

A 24-year-old woman who worked for a company monitoring online information, filtered messages or videos with pornographic content from the Internet and said she was paid to watch porn videos or pictures every day.

In spite of her high annual salary (around 200,000 yuan, or $32,000), the unmarried woman quit after months working as a porn appraiser, a job she kept secret from her boyfriend. But it has been a hot topic online since the woman revealed details of her career to a newspaper in early April.

Some large Chinese network companies have confirmed they have a special department or group of employees to check whether millions of online messages and videos are pornographic, saying such oversight is necessary.

For example, Baidu, China's largest search engine, has about 1,000 staff members responsible for online censorship, "because the current software or computer systems cannot entirely distinguish unhealthy messages from normal ones," said a manager for the company who declined to be named.

Because the government definition of what constitutes pornography is vague, some Internet users take advantage of the confusion to upload risqu pictures or videos to online forums, which are difficult to judge, he said.

A fight against porn has been a major part of an ongoing crackdown on Internet abuse, making online porn appraisers more important.

Baidu prefers females to work as porn appraisers, the manager said.

Such appraisers work not only for dot-com companies but also for public security bureaus. According to the official micro blog of Jiangning public security bureau, a district in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, police watch confiscated CDs to see if they contain any pornographic content, saying married men are preferred for the job for mental health reasons.

Other unusual career choices have also made headlines, including one as a human punching bag.

Xinhua's Telegraph Daily reported that 48-year-old Xie Shuipeng has made a living by having people pay to punch him in the stomach, which earns him around 20,000 yuan each month.

Another interesting occupation is helping new mothers express milk while breast-feeding, by giving breast massages or preparing special foods. However, such occupations face many challenges to regulate and protect their workers, and such careers may not last.

Take the job of porn appraiser as an example. The standards of labeling information as pornography or violence are subjective and change for different companies, said Zhao Li, a lawyer specializing in criminal cases in Beijing.

"The occupation of monitoring or inspecting a big network is legal under current laws," he said, adding that different standards may create extra work for these people.

Only if the government issues a nationwide standard will any punishment of network companies suspected of broadcasting pornographic information be believed by the public, which would also be good for the occupation's development, he said.

Chen Yu, vice-president of China Association for Employment Promotion, voiced his concern about such occupations in a heated online discussion.

"They target some people's interest in novelty or sexy content," he said, adding that new occupations that will last a long time need to obey laws and regulations, and also be in accordance with societal conventions.