I wasn’t, so I joined the army one year later as a teacher. If you join the army you have to be a Party member.

If you are a Party member you are still regarded as a good person, you know, a good performer or something, especially at a young age.

I don’t have any ambition in politics. I don’t feel any particular loyalty to the Party, especially this year as I didn’t join in with the activities or have any direct information from the Party leaders.

Better opportunities

I just feel like anybody else, except that sometimes, if I talk to the government officials they will like me more, you know. I’ll tell them I’m a Party member.

Nowadays there aren’t many young people who belong to the Party.

Even in state-owned companies like mine I guess there aren’t more than four or five members out of the 30 people there. Some are old and some are young.

I graduated in ’94, and at that time being a member of the Party boosted your job opportunities.

Changing times

But now, eight years later, I think people choose according to peoples’ capabilities, not according to their political background.

Are lots of my friends Party members as well? No. They laugh at me - sometimes they say 'Oh you’re a Party member, I forgot.'

I think that being a Communist Party member is seen as being a very serious thing.

Now people of my age don’t want to become a member and even if they did, it’s not easy to join now - it’s not worth the application process.

Membership ties

The application procedure is long. You have to write a lot of reports about your thoughts about the Party.

But to keep going with it is easy. As long as I pay the fee, I will keep this membership.

I think if you stop your membership, it’s a big thing. You’ve got an obligation.

If you didn’t pay for a while they would just stop your membership automatically but I think things would be very, very serious – whereas the amount of money I pay is not a lot. How much you pay depends on your salary.

Status of women

Is Communism’s original premise of equality for women still in practice today? I think less women want a political career so there are less of them. It’s not about equality.

I think Chinese women aren’t especially ambitious and if you join a company or unit, you have to work from morning to evening but women are still obliged to take care of the family.

Concerning physical energy or mentality, I think men are stronger, so sometimes I think women tend to have a lower status than men.

Regarding China’s economic reform, I think that without Deng Xiaoping’s open door policy we wouldn’t have so many foreign companies in China, so we wouldn’t have so many opportunities.

Foreign influences

Foreign companies offer a higher salary and more chances. During my three years as a teacher at the army school I learnt a lot, but I didn’t want to be a teacher and I got bored and left.

Five years later, I worked for a joint venture. I learnt a lot there because British and American companies have advanced management.

And the people around me - my boss and my colleagues - were very open-minded and told me a lot of things about their countries.

You can grow faster this way - you don’t have to experience the pains other countries have already experienced.

Leaving behind the past

I used to work in a medium-sized town. If I had stayed there I would be a different person. My friends and former classmates all think I’m different now.

But different doesn’t mean I’m bad, or capitalist. It means I’m more sophisticated and smarter maybe. I think that’s a good thing.

As for the Party Congress, I think last time [the leadership was overhauled] - which was special, you know with the Tiananmen thing - it felt different, turbulent or whatever.

But this time, we have known for a year or two that it’s going to happen, and because the choice of the Party leader is out of our control, we just take it for granted.

I don’t think the change in leader will have a big impact, because it’s not a Party member change that changes people's lives, it’s economic policy that changes people's lives.

I don’t think the common people pay much attention to who the Party leader is.

I think if anyone, Zhu Rongji can change people's lives, he’s the one. The economy stuff - he seems very smart."