Wu Fei, a post-80s white-collar worker who graduated from Fudan University, quit her job after five years of work because she couldn’t stand the monotonous life. She traveled to New Zealand to work and travel. Over the course of nearly a year, she took on over ten types of jobs she might never have tried back home, such as restaurant chef, kiwifruit picker, and hunting assistant. She also traveled to every corner of New Zealand. Now, Wu Fei has returned to her original life path with a calmer mindset, and even wrote a book sharing her work-and-travel experiences to encourage young people to explore more possibilities in life.
Quit your job and go — with just $200
Quit your job and go — with just $200
Wu Fei is a post-80s person, born in Shanghai and raised in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, a place covered with blooming rapeseed flowers. In 2001, she got into Fudan University and after graduating in 2005, became an ordinary white-collar worker in a foreign company in Shanghai... Her journey had been smooth sailing, and her experience wasn’t much different from that of most office workers — until she decided to change her lifestyle, take a year off from the 9-to-5 grind, and head abroad to “feed horses and chop wood.”
In April 2009, Wu Fei learned about a “working holiday visa” from a friend’s blog. Holders of this visa can work and travel in a foreign country. “At the time, I couldn’t stand the unchanging life, especially realizing that there weren’t many new possibilities in the foreseeable future. I really wanted to do something to change things,” Wu Fei said. Since New Zealand was the only country at the time that offered working holiday visas to people from mainland China, and she had long admired New Zealand’s natural scenery from watching The Lord of the Rings, she immediately decided to apply.
Getting this visa wasn’t easy: only 1,000 spots were available each year, and applicants had to be between 18 and 30 years old. In June 2009, Wu Fei got the visa. In May 2010, hoping to challenge herself further, she set off for New Zealand with just $200. “There was some time between getting the visa and officially resigning and leaving. At the time, my career was on the rise, and I really wanted to finish certain projects before leaving. Many of them were becoming more and more exciting,” Wu Fei said. “But I had made up my mind to seek change, so I had to make some trade-offs.”
Eleven months, over ten “blue-collar” jobs
“Some things you just have to do when you’re young. If you don’t, you’ll never know what you’re capable of surpassing.” During her 11 months in New Zealand, Wu Fei took on over ten types of jobs that would leave people amazed: kiwifruit picker, hunting assistant, extra in a haunted house, restaurant chef, kiwifruit harvester, grapevine pruner, university cleaner... She also fed animals, chopped wood, weeded, and freely lived the life of a farmer in local homestays.
The one-month grapevine pruning job left a deep impression on Wu Fei. The vineyard had beautiful scenery, with mountains and mist, often featuring rainbows during the day, and lively rabbits hopping around. All of this gave Wu Fei, who grew up in the city, a dreamlike feeling. The isolated vineyard had no phone signal or internet access. Wu Fei and her three coworkers spent their days working and sleeping, and otherwise reading and chatting. When they were hungry, they would walk to the kitchen to cook something they wanted, and went into town to shop once a week. “No one disturbed us. While pruning the grapevines, we told stories as if all the beautiful things in the world belonged only to the four of us. The feeling of being carefree was absolutely amazing!”
Wu Fei told reporters that because the visa only allowed her to work at any one job for up to three months, and she also wanted to take advantage of the precious year to see and experience more, she changed jobs very frequently. Wu Fei, who studied physics, initially wanted to find a job related to her field, but found that the demand for high-tech professionals was limited — not to mention for someone like her, a “temporary worker.” As a result, she had to earn money through physical labor. “When you have to do these kinds of jobs, you inevitably feel a bit disappointed. But the sense of stability you get from surviving in a foreign land through your own labor brings more joy than the disappointment,” Wu Fei said.
After saving money from her jobs, Wu Fei would travel for a while, taking in the beauty of the foreign land. Queenstown, Milford Sound, Auckland, Rotorua... She hitchhiked, stayed in homestays, and even slept in cars, exploring every corner of New Zealand at minimal cost. An avid hiker and adventurer, Wu Fei once went solo hiking on the Tongariro Northern Circuit and almost got blown away by strong winds. She met her adorable Taiwanese girlfriend at an apple packing factory, and the island-hopping trip with her partner gave her some of the most carefree memories since adulthood...
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