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When Zhang Yinan was filling out a job application form she came to "family financial status" and quickly skipped it. She knew how much her parents made every month, but was fully aware this question was a trap. The college student knew it was in her best interests to ignore the question and pray the recruiter would not notice. It was Zhang's seventh job application and she had learnt from experience. This is a story recounted in the China Youth Daily and now reposted all over the Web. The Zhejiang University junior hails from a poor village in neighboring Fujian province, and as she put it, somewhat sarcastically, she had never seen more than ten 100-yuan bills at once and her staple food at home was potatoes. (In China, most feed on rice or wheat products.) "How can I put that information into the form?" she said. Zhang was experiencing the fallout of poverty. She may have been enrolled in a prestigious school, but her background of indigence will dog her wherever she goes and cannot be easily cast off. Essentially it is a stigma that she has to carry around with her, not only through her college years, but crawl all the way into the real world of employment, dating, promotion etc. You can almost call it "the stink of poverty". The meme in the Chinese language is "the second-generation poor", or pin erdai. It is a new term coined to contrast "the second-generation rich" or fu erdai. Because wealthy families have more resources, their children get to enjoy the fruits of success and lay the foundation for their own future success. | 
