Fresh out of college, Shen Juntian returned to the village he left with a "city dream" four years earlier.

He returned as a village administrator.

Now a village head assistant in Maozhuang in central China's Henan Province, Shen's routine includes drafting reports for the village committee, mediating conflicts and organizing activities like basketball games.

Shen enjoys his work.

"At first, it was a compromise between reality and dreams, when the competitive job market forced me to think again about this position," he said, referring to his return to the countryside although most of his classmates chose to stay in the city.

"But later, I began to love this job, where I get the chance to know the realities of China and help make changes in the countryside," he said.

Shen invited agricultural experts to give lectures and taught farmers to choose high-quality seeds. He went door-to-door to persuade villagers to eliminate unhealthy habits, such as raising fowl in close proximity to humans and drinking well water without boiling it.

"Thanks to Shen, my income grew 10 percent last year as high-quality seeds proved much more productive," said a man surnamed Hong, a resident of Maozhuang Village.

During the "Cultural Revolution" from 1966 to 1976, about 17 million young urban residents were sent to the countryside, which Chairman Mao called "a wide place for people to fully develop themselves."

Today, "Go to the countryside" has recurred as a catch phrase among college students like Shen.

As of February, hundreds of thousands of graduates were working as village administrators in 28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China.

To work in the countryside seems to have become a hot choice among many new graduates. Premier Wen Jiabao once encouraged college graduates to go to the countryside to contribute their youth and wisdom.

In Henan, one of China's major agricultural provinces, more than 3,000 college graduates, including 366 post-graduate students, competed for 45 village posts last month.

In March, the government launched a five-year project to have 100,000 college students work in villages. They would be responsible for helping farmers with agricultural technology, raising health awareness and skills, promoting cultural activities and researching farmers' complaints.

Yuan Kaisheng, a sociologist with the Henan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said the project is expected to help alleviate job-hunting pressure and upgrade rural governance.

"As living conditions are improving in the countryside, more graduates would choose to work there," he said.

In contrast to the compulsory relocation in Mao's time, the current project has attracted graduates with a series of preferential policies.

Village administrators like Shen are promised free medical insurance and will be looked on more favorably when they pass the national civil service examination and the national graduate school entrance exams after finishing their service in the countryside. Meanwhile, their salaries are above average among new graduates.

"It's no longer a shame for college graduates to work in the countryside, since we can get more than those who choose to work in the cities, in terms of both salary and experience," Shen said.

In the second year of his term, Shen wants to carry out an even more ambitious plan: to attract urbanites to the village, where they could enjoy a laid-back lifestyle and the picturesque landscape.

"It would bring more money to my fellow villagers and more sense of accomplishment to me," he said. "To feel needed by the villagers makes me feel happy."

(Xinhua News Agency May 7, 2008)