I went to college at the University of Michigan. During my freshman year, before any of us had really started to venture far beyond our dorm, a friend dubbed Ann Arbor 'teen island,' referring to the odd feeling of being in a place where everyone was the same age and at the same stage of life. Everywhere you looked you saw yourself reflected back. I never experienced that sensation again in quite the same way until we moved to Beijing and landed in a compound where it seemed everyone was Western, just turning 40 and had two or three kids between two and 10 years old.

 

This crew, which has been at the center of our social life here, represents the classic expat population -- successful people in midcareer who have been exported, generally at great expense to their employer, to establish a beachhead or expand market share in a foreign land. But these old school mainline expats may be endangered. There is another, growing group of expats in Beijing who are younger, more willing to move around and less expensive to employ.

 

Beijing and the rest of China have seen an explosion in younger expats because the region has been so economically and culturally hot. Many people come here post-college, some simply to experience the place; some to learn the language or put into practice their college China Studies classes; and others simply because they want to punch the China ticket and give their career a boost.

 

But the trend towards younger expats is not exclusive to China. 'It is a noticeable change which is often discussed by people in the relocation business,' says Geoffrey Latta, Executive Vice President of ORC Worldwide, a management-consulting firm. 'Companies are interested in sending younger people abroad because they are cheaper and simpler to move, with less family entanglements. And more young people are interested in moving because virtually every field is becoming more global.'

 

These changes are beginning to be reflected in the data, such as it is. The 2008 GMAC Global Relocation Trends Survey of human-resource managers shows that fewer expats are married and have kids than in past years.

 

'Companies are basically saying to up-and-coming employees that they value international experience and young people are much more open-minded about it than in the past,' says GMAC's Scott Sullivan. 'In fact, they are often aggressively pursuing these opportunities, sometimes even at cost to themselves, or at least accepting much lower expat packages. They see it as a way to get experience and become more marketable.'

 

The GMAC survey only reflects people who have actually been moved abroad by employers, but there is also an exploding population of 'halfpats' -- people who travel on their own. Many of them end up getting onto a career track, even if they arrive overseas initially as students, interns or even backpackers.

 

Beijing is filled with college students and recent graduates studying Chinese at a university or teaching English as they feel their way around the city. Many of them spend some time here and then head home or off to further travels, but an increasing number seem to be sticking around and launching careers, often finding it more fertile soil than their homelands for advancement and experimentation. Because they are often seeking entry-level jobs and generally don't have houses full of possessions to move or kids to educate, they neither expect nor receive the large expat packages that have always made it so expensive for an employer to send someone overseas.

 

Maria Guimaraes, a 28-year-old Portuguese who came to Beijing for a three-month internship three-and-a-half years ago, now works as a consultant at Ogilvy Public Relations.

 

'I think three years work experience in China is the equivalent of twice that in Europe because things move so fast,' she says. 'I have been given a lot more responsibility and worked in a lot more different environments. I don't think Europe or America offers such opportunities to people just starting out.'

 

'And that's in the best of times… right now the job market is not good in Europe. It is difficult for graduates to even find opportunity to prove themselves. China offers more possibilities. I am making two or three times what I would in Spain or Portugal and just learning so much more. This is a tremendously exciting place to begin a career.'

Chad Tendler, 28, has worked for Prudential PLC in Hong Kong for three years, after four-and-a-half in Beijing. He came to China after graduating from New Jersey's Drew University, where he studied Mandarin, in 2001. Not seeing a lot of career opportunities in the U.S. in the aftermath of the dotcom bubble burst, he decided to return to Beijing, where he had studied for one semester.

 

'I just thought spending time overseas would be a great interim move,' says Mr. Tendler. Instead he has found a career and a lifestyle he never pondered. He sees himself as part of a growing trend.

 

'Traditionally there were two main ways for a young person to spend considerable time traveling and seeing the world,' says Mr. Tendler. 'It was either backpack travel, maybe teaching English so you can get a stipend to stick around some place, or it was the Peace Corps. People still do both of those things, but I think increasingly new graduates are also looking at job opportunities overseas. And they are out there.'

 

Alex Chen, 30, is another young American who has found unexpected career opportunities in China. Now the communications manager of the Opposite House, a luxury boutique hotel, he worked as a producer at the Food Network before leaving at age 26 to study Chinese for a year in Beijing.

 

'My parents are from here originally and I wanted to be able to communicate with them better in their native language as they got older,' he says. 'I didn't have a plan beyond the study but living as an expat presents opportunities to reinvent yourself and see what else there is to do out there.'

 

Before landing his current job, Mr. Chen worked for a publishing company and for Warner China and he had little difficulty making these career changes here.

 

'I could have stayed in the U.S. and been a relatively good television producer, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that forever,' he says. 'Coming here has allowed me to have some really interesting jobs and then move on to something else.'

 

Obstacles remain. Longer-term visas have become harder to obtain in China. Many of the visa brokers often employed by halfpats have been shut down and there are rampant stories about expats without full-time employment having to leave China, at least for a while. But there is a widespread anticipation that at the end of September, when the Paralympics are over and this extended Olympics period finally ends, things will lighten up again.

 

Immigration restrictions can largely be overcome with a good job, but all of the young expats I spoke to think that the golden age of job seeking in China may be over; many opportunities still exist here, they say, but there is more competition. More local Chinese now have good English skills and a higher level of comfort operating in a foreign environment. And more and more young Americans, Australians and Europeans have figured out all this and are coming to China -- and more of them have good language skills, as studying Mandarin becomes more popular.

 

 

我的母校是密歇根大学。大一时，在我们还没有真正开始探索宿舍之外太远的地方之前，

一位朋友把安阿伯称作“孩子岛”，因为在那里人人都年纪相当，都处于相同的人生阶段，这种感觉很奇怪。无论你往哪儿看都像是自己在照镜子。后来很长一段时期我再也没有这种感觉了，直到我们搬到北京，住进了一个似乎人人都来自西方、年龄40出头、有两三个2-10岁孩子的居民区。

 

这群人是我们在北京社交生活的中心，他们代表了经典的外派群体──正处于事业中期的成功人士、通常拿着高工资、被老板外派到异国他乡打头阵或进一步扩大市场。不过这类传统的外派人员可能正在受到威胁。北京的另外一个外派群体正在不断壮大，他们更加年轻、更愿意四海为家，工资也更低。

 

北京和中国其他地区的年轻外派人员正在爆炸式地增长，它们无论是在经济上还是文化上都炙手可热。很多人大学一毕业就来到中国，有些只是为了体验一下这里的生活，有些则是为了学习中文或是实践一下在有关中国研究的大学课程中学到的内容；还有人只是因为想在简历上写上一笔，以便有助于今后的职业发展。

 

但是外派人员年轻化的趋势并非中国独有。管理咨询公司ORC Worldwide的执行副总裁杰弗里•拉塔(Geoffrey Latta)说，这是一个明显的变化，从事员工调配的人经常讨论这事；公司喜欢把更年轻的员工派到海外，因为他们薪酬较低、搬家更容易，没有太多的家庭问题；而对外派感兴趣的年轻人也越来越多了，因为实际上每个行业都变得日益全球化了。

 

这些变化开始在数据中有所反映。2008年通用汽车金融服务公司(GMAC)对人力资源经理进行的全球员工调配趋势调查显示，现在已婚和有子女的外派人员比前几年要少。

 

GMAC的斯科特•萨利文(Scott Sullivan)说，各公司基本都会对新员工说，他们重视国际经验，而年轻人在这方面也比过去更开放了；实际上，他们常常积极地争取这样的机会，有时甚至会自己吃亏，至少是接受较低的外派福利；他们把这看作是获得经验、增强竞争力的一个途径。

 

GMAC的调查只反映了那些被雇主派到海外的人员，但是“自派”出国的人也在激增。其中很多人最后在国外开始了正式工作，即使他们最初出国的时候是作为学生、实习生甚至是背包客。

 

大学生或是刚毕业的学生一边在北京教授英文或是在大学里学习中文，一边体验这个城市的生活，这样的人在北京随处可见。其中很多人会在这里呆上一阵子，之后会回国或是继续自己的旅行；不过越来越多的人似乎会长期驻扎，开始自己的职业生涯，他们常常发现，这里的环境更有助于他们进步和尝试。由于他们找到的往往是初级工作，一般来说也没有需要大动干戈地搬家或小孩要上学的问题，所以他们不会拿到丰厚的外派薪酬──他们也没有这样的期望。而对雇主来说，正常的外派薪酬是一笔不菲的支出。

 

三年半前，28岁的葡萄牙姑娘圭玛雷斯(Maria Guimaraes)来北京时是作三个月的实习生，而现在成了奥美公关(Ogilvy Public Relations)的一名咨询师。

 

她说：我认为，在中国工作三年获得的经验等于欧洲的两倍，因为这里发展太快了；交给我的职责要多的多，工作环境也很不同；我认为欧美不会向新人提供这样的机会。

 

她说，“这还是在最好的时候……现在欧洲的就业市场不太好。毕业生甚至很难找到机会来证明自己的能力。中国提供了更多的可能。我在这里挣的是在西班牙或葡萄牙的两三倍，而且还学到了那么多的东西。这里是开始职业生涯的一个令人兴奋不已的地方。”

 

28岁的坦德勒(Chad Tendler)已经在香港的英国保诚集团(Prudential PLC)工作了三年，那之前他曾在北京工作了四年半。2001年他从新泽西的德鲁大学(Drew University)中文专业毕业后就来了中国。当他在互联网泡沫破裂后的美国没有发现很多就业机会，于是他决定回到北京，此前他曾在这里学习过一个学期。

 

坦德勒说，“我当时只是想，在海外工作一段时间会是很好的实习经历。”但他在这里找到了自己从来没有想过的职业和生活方式。他认为这种趋势正越来越流行。

 

他说，“传统上，年轻人花相当多时间旅行、看世界有两种主要方式，一是背包旅行，或许还要教英语，这样你就能挣点生活费，可以在一些地方多呆一阵子；二是和平队(Peace Corps.)。这两种方式现在人们仍在使用，但是我想，越来越多刚毕业的学生也在寻找海外工作机会。而那里的确有这样的机会。”

 

30岁的美国人Alex Chen也在中国发现了意想不到的职业机会。他现在是豪华酒店Opposite House的公关经理。他曾是Food Network的一名制片人，在26岁时辞职来北京学了一年的汉语。

 

他说，“我的父母祖籍就是这里，他们年纪越来越大，我希望能更好地用他们的母语和他们交流；我当时除了学习并没有更长远的计划，不过在海外工作为我提供了“重生”的机会，让我看看还能做些什么。”

 

在得到目前这份工作之前，他曾在一家出版公司工作，还曾就职华纳中国，他的职业转型完成得非常轻松。

 

他说，“我本可以呆在美国，成为一名还算不错的电视制片人，但是我不确定自己是否希望永远那样下去。到这里工作让我得以从事一些真正有趣的工作，然后去作别的工作。”

 

但是仍有阻碍。现在获得中国的长期签证更难了。很多由“自派”人员成立的签证经纪机构都关门了，有关没有全职工作的外国人不得不离开中国、至少离开一段时间的故事到处都是。不过人们普遍预期，9月底残奥会闭幕、奥运终于结束的时候，情况会有所好转。

 

移民限制从很大程度上能被好工作所克服，但是和我谈过的年轻外派人员都认为，中国找工作的黄金时代可能要结束了；他们说，仍有很多机会，但是竞争也更激烈了。现在英语水平很高的中国人越来越多，在外资环境下工作也得心应手。越来越多的年轻美国人、澳大利亚人和欧洲人都发现了中国的机会，纷纷来到中国；他们大部分都有很强的语言能力，而学习汉语也变得很流行。

 

Alex Chen说，作为一个外国人的新奇感在北京和上海已经逐渐淡化了。