Thousands now look for working holidays in New Zealand

An Auckland city street view Photo: Courtesy of Ye Shihan

The concept of young people taking working holidays in other countries has long been popular in the West. These days many young graduates from Western universities take a gap year to travel and often work before they embark on their proper careers.

In 2009, 30-year-old Sun Dongchun published his book The Late Gap Year about 13 months of backpacking and volunteering through six countries and it became a bestseller, spurring thousands of other young adventurous Chinese to travel and spend time in countries - not just as tourists.

While Chinese can visit some 50 overseas destinations, which can offer appropriate visas, New Zealand has become for many destination of choice. Apart from its fame as a country of unique natural beauty and the place where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed, it is the only country at present offering working holiday visas to Chinese mainland citizens.

Health requirements

These visas are open to people aged between 18 to 30 who can meet the health and character requirements. As well as a return air ticket and proof of a good financial situation, applicants must provide IELTS (International English Language Testing System) scores of at least 5.5.

The visa allows multiple entries to New Zealand but can only be granted once in a person's life. Just 1,000 visas are allocated to Chinese citizens every year.

Once applicants have been given a visa and begin their holidays, they are expected to undertake temporary work, usually laboring, fruit picking or helping on farms or shops. They are not meant to work for one employer for more than three months.

When the Immigration New Zealand opened its application portal for working holiday visas this year, its website was almost overloaded and the 1,000 vacancies were filled in minutes.

Ma Xiaonan works for a multinational company in Shanghai and missed out on gaining a visa when she applied earlier this year. She said the working holiday visa was practically unknown in China until a male contestant on the Chinese reality matchmaking television show If You Are the One, talked about his experiences in New Zealand.

Because there is now such a huge demand for these visas some applicants arrange groups of their friends to stay online at the times the applications are accepted to file multiple attempts. Online agencies have sprung up offering (for a substantial fee) to guarantee people a visa.

"It feels as if I was standing ready to battle for a ticket home for the lunar new year," Ma said.

These short-term living and working experiences are becoming increasingly popular for Chinese travelers who have been more accustomed to quick and highly organized whistle-stop tours. Going to another country without guides and becoming involved in the life of ordinary people as well as having to speak a different language appeals apparently to young people looking for something different from life in China. Graduates, undergraduates and people who have been working for one or two years comprise most of the applicants.

A recent survey by the Chinese recruitment site 51job.com showed 36 percent of the respondents had considered resigning to travel.

While a sense of adventure accounts for many of the young people trying for working holidays abroad, many also just want the experience of trying to find jobs in a foreign country where it is apparently less competitive to make a living than in Shanghai.

One working holidaymaker Yang Xue, said she had met a young Chinese in Cromwell in the South Island of New Zealand who was aiming to work and save money (the New Zealand dollar is worth approximately five times the yuan).

Others have traveled there on the visa hoping to extend and possibly remain in the country after the year has expired. However the Immigration New Zealand warns that this is a risky plan. Visa holders who remain in the country after the due date without gaining permanent residential visas were liable to be prosecuted and extradited.

Dreams of travel

In her office in Shanghai's CBD of town, Yang Xue now works in a marketing department for a company. A fan of The Lord of the Rings, she had dreamed of traveling but never been to an English-speaking country until 18 months ago when her application for a working holiday visa came through (in those days the demand was not as high as it is now). "After I graduated I worked for almost a year in Shanghai. I worked hard but I found that job was probably not the career I was looking for."