The report about a Peking University (Beida) graduate who ended up selling pork in an out-of-the-way county has drawn a lot of attention recently.

Lu Buxuan, the graduate in question, was admitted to Beida in 1985 after scoring the highest marks in his native county. He graduated from the Chinese Language and Literature Department of Beida in 1989.

He was then assigned to work at a mechanical parts factory in a county. The factory was loss-making and he subsequently tried his hand at a number of jobs before he rented a 10 square metre shop selling pork.

As Beida is one of the best-known universities in China it can only be expected that most people tend to sympathize with Lu's plight.

But some responses are provocatively misleading.

One critique observes that all this sound and fury belies a diploma-worship deeply entrenched in Chinese society.

I am of the opinion so long as the diploma is authentic, diploma-worship is better than money-worship or power-worship.

Internationally, a diploma is still an important criterion for evaluating professional qualifications.

The esteem we accord a diploma, if anything, has been much watered down in recent years. Twenty years ago, holding a college diploma was still an awe-inspiring condition. Now PhD holders had better think twice before revealing their credentials, and only the most gullible take an MBA seriously.

Admittedly diplomas are of special importance to some people. Hu Changqing, an ex-governor who was executed for bribe-taking, had bought a Beida diploma for a few hundred kuai at Zhong Guan Cun. But this is properly "fake diploma-worship".

Another much cited argument is that Lu is probably a social misfit who had failed to adapt to the society outside the campus.

"Anyway", the sage-critic muses, "a man should adapt to society, and not vice versa."

This word of wisdom has been so oft-quoted that its value is, like Penelope's innocence, above suspicion.

It should be pointed out that this opportunistic attitude is consistent neither with communist ideals (we have been taught from our childhood to militate against any evil phenomena in the society) nor with bourgeois democratic aspirations.

And we have good reasons to believe even this charge against Lu is ill-directed.

One of Lu's university roommates, a reporter now working with the People's Daily, characterized Lu as an honest, out-going, optimistic chain-smoker who loved a joke.

The reporter also remarks that one of their classmates is now working as a street-sweeper in Shanxi Province.

I remember a Beida student who graduated in the same year as Lu and who hanged himself less than six months after he was assigned to work at a local fertilizer factory in northern Jiangsu Province.

We are also told that Lu was at one time a boss in charge of more than 100 workers.

All this is suggestive of Lu's struggle over the years.

Even selling pork is an act of choice. It is reported that in 1997 Lu began to work for a newspaper in Xi'an. But the 300 yuan income was too little to support his family. Only then did he turn to pork selling.

Whoever is responsible for Lu's fate, one fact stands out: an educated, promising youth is slaving away in a butcher's shop while some functional illiterates are bossing people around in decision-making positions in courts, newspapers, and governmental departments.

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