U.S. Graduates Look To China

CNN's Emily Chang reports on the lure of China for freshly minted American graduates and entrepreneurs.

Everyday in Beijing, 31-year-old Robin Chan walks through the doors of a multi-million-dollar company he built from the ground up. He's an American who moved to China with one simple idea.

The idea was straightforward--be the first to build a social game company in China. So this is a 3D rendition of one of our avatars, you can see....

Chan and his staff at XPD Media design social games, games you play with friends on networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

It was a courageous bet, but it was a bet worth making.

Forget about living the American dream, this is the Chinese dream. His company is backed by the founder of MTV.

There isn't a lot of cool opportunities in China unless you create your own, and that's part of the excitement of China.

Many young people come to China, thinking this is the land of opportunity, the promised land, the wild, wild east that if you strike big, you could make it really big. But is that the reality?

Not necessarily! Morgan McGilvray just finished his MBA.

I thought, well, since there're no jobs at home anyway, I'll be adventurous and come, er, finish my time out in China. Are they throwing jobs at me? No.

So he's focused on learning Mandarin and becoming a more attractive candidate.

Usually the first thing is to check email and then I go to China Development Brief for nonprofit jobs.

Annie Ly has been looking in the nonprofit field for nine months while volunteering and working to make ends meet. But she plans to stick it out in China, in part because she can afford more with less.

Back home I'd probably live with my parents with what I make here. But here I have a great, you know, one-bedroom apartment for myself...

But realizing her Chinese dream may be difficult in a job market that's becoming more competitive.

We have a lot of very worldly, very intelligent and talented Chinese that are studying in the United States and they're coming back to China. These folks are the ones that most multinationals and Chinese firms are trying to hire.

But for those who do make it, the payoff can be huge.

If I started out in New York, I mean, it's completely feasible to think that I will be their receptionist.

Instead, at 25 years old, Henri Benaim is directing a gallery in China's contemporary art district, showcasing the likes of the famous photographer Wang Jinsong. This is our artist that I have seen in museum shows in New York and seen in catalogues and now in my job. Now we represent him.

Still with all this responsibility, comes a lot of pressure: for Henri, pressure to make sales, for Robin, pressure to innovate, and for Annie and Morgan, the dream is yet to be fulfilled, though none can resist the lure of opportunity in the world's most dynamic economy.

Emily Chang, CNN, Beijing.

Vocabulary:

1. avatar: an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user (as in a computer game or an online shopping site)

2. stick it out: 坚持到底

3. the likes of: such people as