'Odd'-jobbing over the holidays
- Source: Global Times
- [22:19 September 29 2009]
- Comments
By Pan Yan
With millions estimated to be on the move this National Day, some students are targeting the loose wallets of holiday-goers with creative and fun moneymaking niches during their vacation time.
Tilling 'terra-bytes'
The chance to grow crops in virtual vegetable patches has made kaixin001. com an online hit among Chinese looking to get back to their agrarian roots. And Xu Jing, a junior at Southwest Forestry University, Yunnan Province, will take over for those wanting a break from working their cyber-soil as a "plot-sitter."
"This has been my favorite part-time job so far because I can earn money while surfing the Web, something I do in my spare time anyway," Xu said.
Xu will tend the fields of three other digi-farmers during the holiday, on guard for garden thieves while planting new vegetables for them every day.
One day's labor under the pixilated sun earns Xu 50 yuan ($7.32), but if he fails to keep vegetables from getting nicked, he'll be fined 0.5 yuan`($0.07) each. However, he is encouraged to pilfer others' plots, and will get 2 yuan ($0.29) each time he steals vegetables totaling 100,000 virtual yuan.
This job is for the dogs
While their masters have their own day at the park, Zhang Qiang, a junior at Chongqing Medical University, will be looking after Chongqing's canines with his door-to-door dogwalking service during the holiday.
"So many people will be out of town, so I found this the perfect time and posted an ad online. Not surprisingly, I got a lot of responses," she said.
Posted only three weeks before the holiday, Zhang has already gotten over 30 clients. Now over 80 college students in Chongqing have joined Zhang's dogwalking team.
Zhang charges 350 yuan ($51.26) for a week for feeding the dog once every morning and a walk at 6pm. If requested, he'll play with the dog and take it for a jog (doggie running shoes not included).
Rent-a-bridesmaid
Lin Feng, a junior majoring in English at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, will be going to a lot of strangers' weddings these days, as a bridesmaid.
"Besides the money, being a bridesmaid is also lot of fun," she said.
Lin said she makes a base of 500 yuan ($73.22) per wedding, not including tips the happy couples usually hand out.
Stand-in bridesmaids working for professional wedding ceremony companies are held to strict standards; she cannot be too tall or short; needs to have good social skills and capable of troubleshooting pre-ceremony "mini-crises".
Oh yeah, she can't be better looking than the bride.
