Life after Graduation (?)

Today I read an article in the Guardian and I freaked. Not visibly (I'm in the library), but my head  went into a fatalistic overdrive, churning out all the ways in which I can avoid the horrors of being unemployed 30 months after graduating. Despite the heights of my organisation - demonstrated for you lot in a previous post - I feel like an authoritarian regime whose legitimacy is being challenged, the empire I've created around me about to crash around my ears. I've also started getting rejections from multiple law vacation scheme applications, and while this is an inevitable - and partly necessary - part of the process, it unsettles me somewhat.

I have (obviously) looked at options outside of law, but they're a bit to scarce and limiting for me. Some require me to go to China, whereas others mean I won't be able to go to China for another 3+ years! Obviously I'm going to apply for the Civil Service fast stream (just as everyone should in my opinion), but  I was thinking about other civil service jobs that would use my language skills, like MI5 and GCHQ. But then I can't go to Chinnaaaaa, and also my Chinese probably isn't good enough, and also they sound quite boring.
I've mentioned Bloomberg before and while that sounds like a genuinely interesting viable option, if I have to work in the finance department instead of my preferred choice (data & news) I think I'd just walk out the door.

I've also decided to apply to be a British Council Language Assistant...in China. For me, this is another 'back up', but it's actually really competitive, quite hard to get into and a lot of my friends are also applying - some have been working on their applications for years! It's a proper, fancy job with a well establish, we'll-pay-for-your-training kinda organisation. It's only for 10 months and I think I could handle that much longer in the wonderful land, especially if I get a placement like Chengdu (where the pandas are). At only 20 hours a week, I'd also have lots of time to explore...and improve my language skills, of course. Jardines are another company offering seemingly wonderful opportunities, but they're another company that require me to move to Hong Kong tomorrow and their training programme lasts for four years! It does sound genuinely interesting, but I think you have to have good numeracy skills (which can be practised, of course) and one part of the application requires you to submit a video...I don't know how I feel about this.

What about taking an Intership? Well, on that note the oh so famous Always an Intern blog has enough to put people off going down that road out of anything out of...well, not quite desperation - read it and you'll see what I mean. Even why one of my own good friends warns against the irritations of unpaid internships and a relatively planless near future in her blog. Although having said all this, one should never turn down an internship if it is your only option - it might be your foot in the door for getting your 'dream job'.

I could go to University in China, with an all-inclusive-style grant from the government...Although that's more of a last resort than a viable option. I do want to go back into education at some point (because I love learning and my dream is to be one of the academics that they consult in dusty offices with piles of books and a leather swivel chair in a really famous university because I have all the knowledge of the potential of democratisation in China), but not just quite yet. Remember the Fulbright dream kids - that dream's gonna cost a lot of dollar (literally).

I got an admonishing call from a friend almost immediately after voicing my first wave of panic however - she assured me that I do have the skills, time management and organisational, to secure that elusive post-graduate position. If anyone can, you can Edi. Another friend just told me to shush. But despite their encouraging words, my fears were not completely assuaged. The long and short of it is, I know too many people with too many skills struggling to find jobs and it scares me. On the other hand, I also know a lot of people who have succeeded in securing things like training contracts and even real graduate jobs straight out of Uni, so they do, indeed, exist. It's just not black and white, you know?

Anyway, if worst comes to worst, I'll just run away to Dalian and teach English for 3-10 years. Who's with me?

Pills Pills Pills

If one more person says the word Berocca to me, I might punch them in the face. My flatmate asked me to pick some up for her on my way home from the shops. Do you know how much they cost? £5. £5! Even she was shocked and she was the one who had asked for them!

According to their website, Berocca is a 'healthy' way to get more vitamins (namely Vitamins B, C, Magnesium and Zinc).You know what I think they are? I think they're fizzy tablets that are being marketed at extortionate prices, because the sale of protein shakes has declined in the past few years because people realised they could just get up and go to the frickin' gym. Just like people will realise that eating oranges (roughly £negligible) will give them the same, non-essential benefits as taking a factory formulated, chemical rich tablet. By the way, don't get excited by anything that says it contains guarana, it's just a fancy word for caffeine. And people go ooon and ooon about the benefits. Look, take it if you want to, but do NOT try and push this obsession on me. I barely have enough money for 9p Tesco noodles and you want me to spend that money on vitamin supplements? Get out.

And it's not just Berocca (and not just pills). It's like the government unconsciously OK'd the marketing of natural products when they started telling us to get our '5-a-day' and drink 10 gallons of water an hour. Even Women's World questions the credibility and necessity of the '5-a-day', admitting that there are other, and possibly better ways, to stay healthy - bearing in mind this is one of those websites that is probably specifically designed to make women worry about their looks and spend more money (look, it was either this site or the Daily Mail - we both know which one's more credible).

Where did this obsession with popping non-recreation pills come from anyway? I mean, I like to take a vitamin C tablet every now and again, but that's because they're chewy and yummy and I had some left over from the 90's. Do you think people were thinking about these sorts of things 50 years ago? Even 10-20 years ago? And most of those people are still alive! Look at the Japanese and Chinese for goodness sake - they do a lot of weird'ish over there, but for all the crazy sea urchin delicacies I see advertised, I've never heard of a mass campaign for magnesium tablets. When I see my family, they ask you 'Are you eating?' and if you are, that's pretty much good enough for them and the entire bloody village. These aren't even essential vitamins - fair enough if you've got an iron deficiency or you're anaemic or something, but your body can't even retain vitamin C and as for vitamin D, do you even know what it's for? What is the likelihood you're going to get scurvy in this day and age* (when not out at sea on a 17th century warship that is). 

So, in summary, and link this whole rant back to how I think Berocca's stupid, here's a list of 10 things I could have spent those £5s on:

1. 2 drinks on a night out
2. Half a week's shopping (actually essential)
3. A second-hand video game for any console made before 2008
4. lunch
5. 2 hot drinks
6. 2 non-oyster card journeys on London buses/ one non-return from East-West/North-South London (Terms & Conditions apply)
7. A variety pack of something unhealthy and the quintessential opposite of Berocca (which Berocca consumers probably do anyway)
8. A BASKET OF FRUIT (you see where I'm going with this)
9. Someone's début album (support the industry, hate piracy....)
10. The ingredients to make a Beef and Carrot stew with rice, with a side rocket and spinach salad and a vinegar-based dressing.

Think about it people.

P.S. There's a new 'Mixed Berries flavour' out now. Consumerism FTW.

*P.P.S Apparently rickets (caused by vitamin D deficiency) and scurvy are on the rise http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/01January/Pages/Rickets-on-the-rise.aspx) - but again, that's due to poor diet and lack of exercise, both of which I promote over the taking of vitamin supplements! 

10 points for guessing 习近平

Congratulations! You've just effectively used google to discover that the above characters are indeed a name: Xi JinPing. Unfortunately, I wasn't just looking for a word-for-word translation - this isn't an exam. What I was looking for was the answer to this question: what does 习近平 mean? Ok kids, we're about to get technical.

My new found love of Chinese politics - brought on by my new found love of my Chinese politics professor - has turned me into something of a political commentator. Election time is gearing up in the US in one of the most expensive, nail-biting, potentially disappointing campaigns of our generation. But, despite the lack of voting taking place in the Chinese system, the transition of power taking place in the next few weeks could be just as important as what's going on in America.

The Economist refer to Xi as the man who must change China. Alright guys, lets not get too carried away. Apart from the end of currency manipulation and  actually listening to the environmental concerns of the middle classes, there's really not that much that can (or would) be changed when Xi comes to power as China's next President. Yes, when. These things are decided months, even years, in advance, and the top members of China's decision making powerhouse, the Politburo (standing committee), are often scouted early on in their careers and trained up through a variety of 'relevant' positions.

Sophie "I love how they have a Politburo"
Me "Yeah...It's a Communist Party"
Sophie "I know but...it just feels a bit silly!"

They may just seem like a group of nondescript, would-be-about-to-retire-in-any-other-country men, but these are the people that hold all the power in China - they make the most important decisions and have the final say on pretty much everything. Just so you're aware, the current leader of the Communist party is Hu Jintao and his Premier is Wen Jiabo. They've both had experience in different government departments, and have spent time in the 'regions' (Hu did a stint in Tibet), which is essential for any aspiring leader. It may seem like a fairly smooth road to the top once you've been marked out for stardom, but, unsurprisingly, the way can be fraught with pitfalls. 

You may have heard of the Bo Xilai scandal that took place this year, resulting in the party secretary for Chongqing - originally marked out for a place on the Politburo - being expelled from the party. The new favourite? Wang Yang, party secretary of Guangdong. This may all be going over your head right now, but I am going somewhere with this. Chonqing and Guangdong have competing models of development - often taking a more liberal, forward-thinking approach to reform, on several occasions jumping the gun on policies yet to be decided by Beijing (central gov). No doubt they were both aiming for a top position, but one can only have so many mavericks running the country, and needless to say that Wang and Bo weren't the best of friends. Many believe that this 'scandal' and others were cooked up by Bo's opposition in Beijing to get rid of him in time for the once in a decade change over. Or it could just be a happy coincidence; one that Wang Yang happens to benefit greatly from. In the Chinese system, however, I doubt there are anything as convenient as coincidences.

So why all the fuss? Like I said, these guys are the ones in control. Some speculators think that with a younger, more liberal set of leaders in government China may be on the way to a decent human rights regime (by decent, I mean western), a loosening of party control, and who knows, maybe even democracy. I can say, with some confidence, that China is probably not on the way to broadening the political rights of its citizens (let alone introducing democracy), and will continue to fervently clamp down of the 90,000+ 'incidents' that occur each year. Xi is not known for being a liberal, but he will have to prepare for the effects of a slow-down in growth, with could potentially turn into an economic downturn during his reign. This in turn would increase social unrest, threatening the party's legitimacy and absolute power, arguably already on the decline.

But is the party really under threat? Will the party really change just because its leaders do? That remains to be seen, but it is important to bear in mind that the party doesn't like not being in control: they are the only party, they are the state, they provide welfare and security, control religion, the media and spend billions on ensuring that no one plays up on the internet. They're doing a pretty good job of being in control so far, and this situation is unlikely to change with the introduction of 7 men (and possibly 1 woman) in a body of 83 million cadres, no matter how 'top' they are. The party way of life is ingrained, and even if they all start clamouring for liberalisation, the party's top dogs would need some serious guanxi prowess (along without about 25 years) to push through any truly radical reform.

Ok, so maybe not as much of an impact on us as the US elections may have, but a basic understanding of what's going on with the leadership in China may be of some use when China rules the world...