纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英找工作怎么这么难那些青旅里的中国年轻人

In a youth hostel in downtown Shanghai, amid the dull roar of a hair dryer, the shriek of a blender and the lingering aroma of spicy instant noodles, Ethan Yi, 23, was pondering the state of the world.

上海市中心的一家青年旅舍里，吹风机单调的呜呜声和食物搅拌器刺耳的旋转声不绝于耳，空气中散发着辛辣方便面的味道，23岁的伊森·易（音）在琢磨着生活之难。

“Why can’t I, a college graduate, find a job?” Mr. Yi lamented as he sat in the hostel’s common room after a day of unsuccessful interviews. “Why is it only jobs that pay just $400 or $500 a month that want me? Sometimes I wonder, how can it be this hard?”

“为什么我一个本科生为什么我找不到工作？”坐在旅舍共用休息室里的易先生失望地问道，他刚花了一整天时间面试工作岗位，但毫无所获。“为什么别人都是只赚三四千的来找我，有时候觉得怎么这么难？”

That is the question being asked in hostels across China. As joblessness among young Chinese has reached record highs, hostels have become refuges for young people trying their fortunes in major cities, who need a place to crash between back-to-back interviews, to strategize on their next networking meeting or to fire off yet another résumé. They have become concentrated hubs for people’s anxiety, hopes, despair and ambitions, all packed into bunk beds that go for a few dollars a night.

中国各地的廉价旅舍里都有人在问这个问题。随着中国年轻人失业率创下历史新高，这些旅舍已成为在大城市里碰运气的年轻人的避难所，他们在接二连三的面试后需要找个地方休息，为下一个建立联系的会面制定行动计划，或再投一份简历。这些旅舍几十元一晚的上下铺聚合着人们的焦虑、希望、绝望和抱负。

At the Together Hostel, where Mr. Yi was staying, new arrivals scrolled through online job listings surrounded by wall maps highlighting the best spots for Shanghai soup dumplings. Posters advertising local comedy shows went largely ignored by fresh graduates calling their parents for advice or comfort.

在易先生住的一起一起青年旅舍，新入住的人在网上浏览着招聘广告，墙上的地图标记出上海小笼包最好吃的地方。正在给父母打电话寻求建议或安慰的应届毕业生对于墙上为当地喜剧节目做广告的海报基本视而不见。

Asked what he had been doing at the hostel, Mr. Yi, who was sitting idly by the smoothie bar, responded: “Thinking about life.”

当记者问他在旅舍里一直在干什么时，闲坐在冰沙吧旁的易先生回答说：“思考人生。”

Many of the guests arrive with high hopes. Mr. Yi, visiting Shanghai for the first time from his home in the central province of Hunan, was delighted to see many foreigners in the city, as he wanted to work in international trade or translation. He arrived on a Saturday and with several interviews lined up for the week, he spent the weekend sightseeing. At night, he returned to the tidy room and private bathroom he shared with three others for about $13 per night.

许多住客都是满怀希望地来到这里。易先生从湖南的老家第一次来到上海，很高兴地看到这座城市里有许多外国人，因为他想从事国际贸易或翻译工作。他上周六到了上海，本周已安排了几场面试，他周末出去逛了逛。晚上，他回到旅舍整洁的房间，他和另外三人同住在一个带有洗手间的房间里，每晚住宿费95元。

But by the following Monday evening, he had deflated. An interview that morning, at a start-up, had ended within a few minutes. Several hours later, he received a rejection notice from another company that he had interviewed with online before arriving. He wanted a salary of at least $950 a month, slightly higher than the average in Shanghai, but the likelihood seemed slim.

但到周一晚上，他已经灰心丧气。那天上午在一家初创公司的面试几分钟就结束了。几小时后，他收到了另一家公司的回绝通知，他在来上海前已在网上面试了那家公司。他的期望薪资是每月至少7000元，略高于上海的平均水平，但找到这么高工资职位的可能性似乎很小。

“Right now I feel pretty lost,” Mr. Yi said, as guests with towels wrapped around wet hair padded through the lobby. “My dad just told me, it’s OK, keep looking. But honestly, you still have to think about the money problem — I don’t want to waste too much. So my time is limited.”

“现在我其实还是很迷茫的，”易先生说。他说话时，用毛巾裹着湿漉漉头发的住客从大厅里轻轻走过。“当然我爸爸刚才又说了，没关系，再找。但是说实话还是要说到这个问题，成本这方面我也说实话不想浪费太多，所以时间上是有限的。”

The hostels are necessary partly because of the hypercompetitive nature of China’s white-collar job market. The most desirable opportunities are still concentrated in a few megacities like Shanghai or Shenzhen, even as the number of universities and university graduates around the country has ballooned. The surfeit of graduates means that candidates unwilling to travel for interviews — and pay their own way — may be easily dismissed.

这种旅舍之所以有必要，部分原因是中国白领就业市场竞争异常激烈。最理想的机会仍集中在上海或深圳等少数大城市，尽管全国各地的大学和大学毕业生的数量猛增。后者的过剩意味着，不愿意去外地面试并自己支付旅行费用的候选人可能很容易遭到淘汰。

As the Chinese economy slows, competition has grown even stiffer. Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds in urban areas rose to a record high of 21.3 percent in June, before the government stopped publishing the data. Even some young people who have landed jobs are paid so little that they cannot afford a deposit on a long-term lease, or are afraid to sign one for fear of suddenly being laid off. That was the case with Mr. Yi’s upper bunkmate.

随着中国经济增长放缓，就业竞争已变得更加激烈。今年6月份城镇16至24岁人群的失业率已升到了21.3%的历史新高，那之后，政府停止了发布这个数据。就连一些已经找到工作的年轻人因为工资太低，付不起长期租房合约的押金，或因为害怕突然被解雇，都不敢签长期租约。易先生的上铺室友就是这种情况。

The competition was also weighing heavily upon Zhi Yanran, who had traveled to the hostel the day before from her home in Jiangxi Province. Ms. Zhi had done three interviews that day, and had two more the next, for positions in human resources; she had also continued to submit new applications in between.

这种竞争也给植燕然（音）带来了沉重的压力，她一天前从江西老家来到上海，住进了这家旅舍。到达的当天，植女士有三轮面试，第二天又有两轮，她面试的是人力资源职位。没有面试安排时，她一直在继续提交新的申请。

Still, Ms. Zhi said she felt she was lagging behind her graduate school classmates, who had started applying for jobs long ago. She had begun only in September, after “lying flat” — Chinese slang for slacking off — for “a long time,” she said.

尽管如此，植女士说，她觉得自己落在了她研究生同学的后面，他们毕业前很早就开始找工作了。她九月份才开始找工作，那之前，她“躺平”了“很久”，她说。

How long exactly? About two months, since graduating in June. But that was a long time, Ms. Zhi insisted. “It’s so hard to find a job now!”

究竟多长时间？她是今年6月毕业的，过了两个月才开始找工作。但植女士坚持说，那已经是很长时间了。“现在找工作很难啊！”

Ms. Zhang was satisfied with her five-person room in the hostel, for which she was paying less than $11 a night, but had one minor complaint: The hostel was not nearly as lively as she had expected. Ms. Zhi had hoped to make friends, but seemingly all the other guests who were not in their rooms were sitting silently hunched over their phones or computers in individual workstations.

植女士对她住的五人间挺满意，每晚的住宿费是80元，但她也有一个小小的抱怨：旅舍的气氛不如她想象的那么活跃。植女士曾想结交些朋友，但似乎所有不呆在自己房间里的客人要么在安静地低头看手机，要么坐在个人工作区用电脑。

“It’s like a college dorm mixed with a library,” Ms. Zhi said, finishing a quiet takeout dinner in a dimly lit cubicle of her own.

“很像大学宿舍加图书馆，”植女士边说边在她自己光线昏暗的小隔间里安静地吃完了外卖晚餐。

Though recent graduates have among the highest rates of joblessness, others have struggled too. In the lobby around 9 p.m., while food delivery drivers flitted in and out calling out orders, Kris Zhang, 30, lay on a couch trying to nap.

虽然刚毕业的人失业率最高，但其他人找工作也不容易。晚上9点左右，外卖员在旅舍大厅进进出出，喊着订单人的名字，30岁的克里斯·张（音）躺在沙发上想小睡一下。

Mr. Zhang had worked in the city of Hangzhou as a well-paid computer programmer at Alibaba, the e-commerce giant, until he was laid off earlier this year. He wanted to stay in Hangzhou, where he had already bought a house and an Audi, but couldn’t find a new job there that would pay well enough to cover his more than $27,000 annually in mortgage and car loans.

张先生曾在电子商务巨头阿里巴巴的杭州总部当程序员，拿着颇高的工资，但在今年早些时候被解雇了。他曾想留在杭州，因为他已在那里买了房，还买了一辆奥迪汽车，但一直找不到一份工资足以支付他每年20万元房贷和车贷的新工作。

So the week before, he had reluctantly accepted an offer in Shanghai, while continuing to look for positions in Hangzhou. He was living in the hostel in the hope that his stay in Shanghai would be brief. He showed the sparse contents of a silver hard-shell suitcase — a few tangled shirts and shorts, taking up barely a quarter of the space — as if manifesting that short timeline into existence.

所以一周前，他无奈地接受了一份在上海的工作，同时继续在杭州找工作。他一直住在旅舍，因为希望在上海住的时间不长。他的银色硬壳行李箱里没有多少东西，只有几件胡乱折叠的衬衫和短裤，占了不到四分之一的空间，仿佛要将短暂停留的愿望显现为现实似的。

Still, Mr. Zhang acknowledged the reality might be more difficult. “Before, you could search with your eyes closed and get dozens of offers a year,” he said. “The situation now is much worse.”

尽管如此，张先生承认现实可能更困难。“那时候眼睛闭着找，一年收几十个offer都有，”他说。“目前确实形势差得很。”

Around 10 p.m., Yang Han flopped onto a couch in the common room, sweaty from a game of pickup basketball. Mr. Yang, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in advertising in June, had traveled from his home in central China’s Henan Province for two interviews. Shanghai was the hub of China’s advertising industry, he said, and he was determined to find a job there.

晚上10点左右，杨瀚（音）在共用休息室的沙发上疲惫地坐下，他刚打完一场即兴篮球赛，满头大汗。杨先生今年6月刚从大学毕业，读的是广告学，他为了两轮面试从河南老家来到上海。上海是中国广告业中心，他说，他决心要在这里找一份工作。

He had been anxious when he arrived several days earlier. But the interviews were done, and he could do nothing more but wait. (Sort of: He had been thinking about sending a follow-up letter to one recruiter to lay out his case again.)

几天前刚到时，他曾焦虑不安。但面试已经结束，他没有什么可做的了，只能等待。（但并非完全如此：他一直在考虑给一家公司的招聘人员发封后续信，再次列明自己的情况。）

Mr. Yang settled into his seat and unwrapped a convenience store sandwich and a separate chicken breast — both cheap and nutritious, he noted. Worst case, he said, he would be rejected, take the train back to Henan, submit more résumés, and wait until a next round of interviews in Shanghai. And repeat until he found a job.

杨先生坐在那里，把从便利店买来的一份三明治和一块另外买的鸡胸肉拿出来吃——这既便宜又有营养，他说。最糟糕的情况是，他会被回绝，他说，那他就坐火车回河南，继续提交简历，等待下一次来上海面试的机会。反复这样做，直到找到工作。

Of course, he added, “I hope I don’t need to make that many trips.”

当然，他补充说，“希望不需要那么多次的往返。”