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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] | 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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