In China these days, university graduates who have not been lucky enough to settle into their dream jobs often look to graduated studies as a way to kill the time that they cannot otherwise spend meaningfully. I am prepared to go against the social conventions by putting on hold a successful research career that promised to be even more successful. With eight years of productive and highly valued practical research behind me, I now would like to revert to a more intellectual life so that I can conduct more theoretical discourses.

Quite some of my friends have trouble understanding my decision."Why did you not take the opportunity eight years ago," they would ask, " when your alma mater offered to admit you as a graduate student without any hassle?" Indeed, I declined to become a graduate student in 1991, when Q university arguably China's best higher-learning institution, made it clear to me that I would be exempted from the normally mandatory qualifying examinations in case I wanted to do graduate studies there. To many of my friends, I should have taken advantage of that opportunity if I had really wanted to become an intellectual.

Well, I have always wanted to be an intellectual. But I thought that a good intellectual has to ground his or her theoretical discourses n comprehensive knowledge of the social reality. And that is what I have been trying to do since high school.

In 1985, I took part in the National University Entrance Examination, which are held once a year nationwide to screen the country's high school graduates for post-secondary education, and scored a total of grades that was the second best in Henan Province (with a population close to 100 million). With such an academic record, I could have chosen a more fashionable or potentially profitable major such as law or business administration. Instead I opted for biological engineering and entered into the Qinghua's Department of Biological Engineering with a total of grades in the National University Entrance Examinations better than that of any of my fellow students. In 1989, I graduated with an academic record that was, in overall terms, the second best in the crop of graduates of that year.

Upon graduation, I secured a job with the Shenzhen Social Science Academy, which serves, as the municipal government's most resourceful and most important think-tank. As you may very well know, Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, the "Pearl of the Orient." As China's first and most successful"special economic zone," it has pioneered many, if not most, of China's far-reaching economic reforms, and in the process it has grown from a village of several thousand to an ultra-modern city of several million people, all in 16 years. The Academy is charged with coming up with new policy proposals or conducting feasibility studies on various policy proposals. In either case, the Academy must analyze and predict the effect or consequences of the policy implementation, and the city's politicians would make their decisions in reference to or even reliance on the Office's research reports.

Since I was trained in Biology, I was at first assigned to do data recording and other statistical work on medical care related topics. But, within two years, I began to do research independently. Starting from the third year, I have been in charge of a group of 12 in various research projects. In 1994, I directed a major study on the municipal government's proposed reform of the city's medical care system, and, on the basis of the research results, came up with some specific suggestions in terms of what reforms should be undertaken and how they should be carried out. The study was a resounding success.

At the time, many of my colleagues, my supervisor included thought that the study was related to the reform of the medical care system in Shenzhen only. I respectfully disagreed. Shenzhen, I argued, would probably serve as an example in the medical care reform area, as it often does in many other areas. In fact, the country's top leadership opened the city up as their first"special economic zone" with the specific purpose of making it a trail-blazer in the country's reform process. I f Shenzhen was to fulfill its mission, it had to come up with policies that would be applicable to other parts of the country as well.

Having convinced my supervisor of the merits of my thinking, I designed a research plan that involved the combined use of three research methods: sample survey, case study and participatory research. The country was divided into several major parts, and for each part, a given number of representative cities were chosen, to which my investigators were sent. The subjects of the investigation included ordinary city residents, government officials, medical providers and insurance companies, who were all asked about their feelings and expectations about the medical care reform. We also took Hong Kong's medical care system into consideration, as Hong Kong, with its striking resemblance to Shenzhen in terms of its culture and values provides an obvious reference point for Shenzhen's policy deliberations.

On the basis of all the data gathered, I made the following proposals to address the problems that beset the city's medical system at the time:

Revoke the traditional system that mandated the employer's full reimbursement of all of any employee's total medical cost, replacing it with a new system in which the employer is required to pay 90 per cent and the employee 10 per cent of the cost of any ordinary medical care. In this system, the employees would be issued special magnetic medicare card that could only be used in designated hospitals.

The insurance companies would simultaneously be required to offer new types of insurance policies to cover extraordinary cost associated with grave illnesses, and it would be up to the reidents to pay the insurance premiums themselves.

The scheme, meant to rein in the excessive medical cost for employers without putting too much of a burden on employees, was first put into trial of ten of Shenzhen's large stateowned enterprises. Half a year later, it was enforced throughout the city. Soon, positive assessments of the scheme flowed in from private corporations and public institutions alike. It significantly reduced the excessive medical cost, and most of the money saved was spent on fitness and recreation programs that employees generally enjoyed. Both employers and employees thus benefited from the scheme. The scheme also had the added advantage of stabilizing the prices of medication at a reasonable level.

From 1995 on, most of the large and medium cities begun to imitate Shenzhen's medicare reforms with positive results. The scheme has thus had nationwide impact.

Public policy as a social science is a comparatively new discipline in China, and it is still weak in both theoretical frameworks and practical research methodologies. The use of sophisticated research as a basis for policy decisions is still a new phenomenon. There are not many students and scholars in this area, and even fewer can claim genuine expertise. In fact, most people tend to ignore public policy research, thinking that it does not have the kind of utility as computer science nor the kind of sophistication as philosophy. It is a state of affairs to lament about, and I consider it my mission to change it.

My work experience has taught me on where I am still inadequately prepared for the mission that I have taken on, in terms of both conceptual and practical training. I have come to a point where I feel a pressing need for more advanced education in public administration and policy research. Yet, very few of China's universities boast of public policy research programs. I am hoping that, one day in this country, policy research and implementation knowledge would no longer be confined to the trained few, and policy decisions will normally be based on rigorous research . I am quite aware that it may take the efforts of several generations for such a new discipline to take roots in a country as old and as fast-changing as China, and I would like to devote my life to helping this new discipline grow in this country.

I do not really have a whole lot of hobbies. Apart from reading books and listening to my friends relate their experiences, I enjoy traveling on my own. While I always emphasize the importance of teamwork in the office, I like traveling on my own so that it is easier for me to seek a personal connection with nature. As I savor nature's grandeur and my own seclusion in it, the natural world often endows me with new vision and fresh insights.

I have also experienced quite some failures and setbacks in my life, but I have never given up my goal before I reached it. Whenever bogged down in quagmires, I would push myself by saying, "just toughen it out, and you will be there. Tomorrow will be better if only you try a little harder."

I would really appreciated your serous deliberation over my application, as I have pondered very seriously before I made up my mind to send in this application. I am sure that, if I can be lucky enough to study under your seasoned guidance and with the necessary financial assistance, you will be training one of the best Chinese policy researchers in China of the 21st century.

For the successes I have achieved so far, I have enjoyed the kind help and support from many people. My further successes are now dependent on your support and appreciation, and I hope you will be generous in offering both after you have reviewed my application. I shall be looking forward to your early reply. Thank you.