New Visions of the Good Life: Entrepreneurial Pursuits of Chinese Elite University Students

Abstract

In recent years, efforts to promote entrepreneurship as a possible career path for Chinese university students have intensified alongside the implementation of the official campaign of “mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation” (大众创业, 万众创新, dazhong chuangye, wanzhong chuangxin). Based on semi-structured interviews and long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted at two Chinese elite universities, this article examines what motivates young Chinese to become entrepreneurs. It is argued that Chinese students imagine entrepreneurship as an alternative to ceaseless striving for high-paying jobs. They believe that becoming entrepreneurs will enable them to pursue their own interests, engage in meaningful projects, experience a life of excitement and variation, and become masters of their own time. This notion of the good life ties in with broader discourses of well-being that are currently proliferating among youth in urban China.