The Chinese government has a wonderful programme aimed at encouraging recent college graduates to start their own businesses - which hardly ever gets used. 'Entrepreneurial loans' come with low interest rates and preferential credit requirements, and would be perfect for budding businesspeople. If only they would apply for them.
Figures come trickling out from time to time - only 3 per cent of recent graduates in Chongqing applied for the loans; fewer than 5 per cent in Beijing. Graduates are registering as unemployed rather than take out loans. Newspaper editorial writers grumble perplexedly: 'What's wrong with these kids? Isn't the empowerment of the market economy's most creative elements exactly what we need?'
This doesn't mean that there is no creativity out there. Wang Ke didn't even take out loans when he started up his company, Huanbao Tiantang (roughly, Environmental Protection Heaven). He followed no set business model and did not aim his products at Beijing's newly wealthy citizens. On the contrary, he started a rubbish-collection firm.
The idea for the company came to him when he was working in a part-time job. He started adding up in his head the value of all the recyclable things he saw being tossed out of his office. 'No one was making use of them in an organised way, so I thought, 'why not me?'' he said. That was all it took.
Now companies call him instead of simply trashing recyclable items, such as plastic, glass, newspapers and some electronic items. He takes it to reclamation stations, which pay cash.
Mr Wang's idea addressed a need that had mostly gone unrecognised, but it also bent a few ingrained ideas about society. However you package it, collecting rubbish is a decidedly low-status job. Mr Wang gets around this by recruiting other college students to work with him, and by donating part of the profits to the anti-poverty group Project Hope - disguising gainful (if shameful) employment as charity work.