There is something utterly Chinese about the sudden appearance of the Chongqing City Vocational Institute, a four-year school offering a wide range of degrees. Construction of this kind — in less time than it takes most Americans to redo a bathroom — happens all the time here. Return to a place after a week away and you are likely to find it transformed. Buildings are razed. New ones have sprouted like crocuses. If the quality is bad, they are known in Chinese as “tofu scraps,” for the loose white crumbles left behind after making bean curd. But much of the construction is not tofu scraps; it’s simply built at the pace of a nation relentlessly devoted to transformation. China has been on a college-building spree for a decade to churn out legions of new accountants, lawyers, factory managers and others. But that surge in graduates also has meant a spike in job competition. In the past a diploma guaranteed a good post, but at least 60 percent of new college graduates in China report having trouble finding work.
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IN THE WEB EDITION
The Sichuan Diaries: A China Journey
Follow along and interact with Tribune correspondent Evan Osnos as he ventures across China’s vast heartland: chicagotribune.com/chinajourney
