Alas, the disproportionately low recruitment rate has meant the overwhelming majority of examinees flunk. But landing a post is lauded by friends and family. My friend Ann breathed a sigh of relief when her obstinate parents eventually accepted her boyfriend, an able and ambitious lad that was once a company technician living a nickel-and-dime salary but has now passed the exam and works at a government agency.

What a shame that so many youth are throwing themselves into the office treadmill.

I have been there and done that, as a nine-to-five gofer at a government organization.

Documents came and went with monotonous regularity. Work was rife with empty rhetoric and red tape. My colleagues were bald, pot-bellied uncles or babbling aunts bragging about how awesome their kids were.

I believe the parents of the current generation, mostly born in the 1950s, may be part of the reason behind their offspring's zeal to join the army of government workers, even it it means sacrificing any chance of an interesting life.

Those parents were victimized by kaleidoscopic political movements and sea changes in national policy. Many of them sacrificed their own youth for the country but didn't get much in return. Their once steadfast belief was shattered and they became money-driven and materialistic.

Thus they want their kids' life to be stable, unchangeable, and on to a fixed path which is not necessarily fabulous and fantastic, but definitely safe and secured. No wonder the young march in such lemming-like legions toward the civil service.

The author is a Shanghai-based freelancer. wendywang999@126.com