By intern reporter ZHAO YAYUAN

MOVING forward with its "Western Development" strategy for a decade now, the Chinese government has consistently recruited qualified personnel to inject brain power into the region, signing up nearly 100,000 applicants in 2009 from the ranks of the country's university graduates. Does this new generation of Chinese youth regard their adventure an ideal pursuit, or just a realistic choice for those caught in the current tight employment situation?

College graduate Zhou Zejin working at a cattle farm in Dongxiang County, Jiangxi Province.

Answering the Call

    One such applicant, Liu Bangchao, a graduate candidate with a business management major from Howon University in Korea, has his roots in the city of Yantai, Shandong Province in East China. Before leaving to study in Korea, he heard about the "University Graduates Volunteer Services Plan for Western China" (or Western Plan) through the TV and Internet. "I want to do something meaningful with my life," Liu decided.

    Liu envisions West China as "a sparely populated have-not area with a wealth of simple and honest people." Assessing the 11 provinces, autonomous regions and one municipality he can choose from, Liu formed no particular preferences, just as long as he goes. Liu, in fact, has missed the signing-up deadline. Like him, tens of applicants still leave messages asking to be signed up on the Western Plan official website, expressing their wish "to do something meaningful."

    "Serve the West, serve the grass roots, and serve the country's needy" is the plan's 2009 slogan. The official application figure, by the May 10 deadline, was 96,785 graduating students representing over 1,000 institutions of higher learning, a distinct gain over last year's 60,000 people.

    Under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Youth League Central Committee, the Western Plan is jointly administered by the ministries of Education, Finance, and Human Resources and Social Security. Since 2003, the plan has annually selected graduating university students to provide one- to three-year terms of volunteer service in impoverished counties in West China. Their work encompasses education, sanitation, agricultural technology, and poverty alleviation, as well as construction and management of youth centers. This year the number of volunteers for the program has been expanded from last year's 10,000 up to 15,000.

    There are other options for students to serve the west, including the "handpicked graduates program" and regular aid corps that support rural education, medical services, agriculture and poverty alleviation.