BEIJING — Fly on a Chinese airline and you will be pampered by flight attendants who look eerily alike. They are young, beautiful and practically the same height.
This is not a coffee-tea-or-me stereotype but the result of a rigorous selection process that is much more old-fashioned beauty pageant than equal-opportunity job interview.
If you're older than 24, don't bother applying.
If you aren't at least a couple of inches taller than the average Chinese woman, go home.
And if your legs are even remotely similar to tree trunks, don't call us, we'll call you.
Sound like a throwback to the dark ages of workplace discrimination? Here, in the world's fastest-growing aviation market, prohibitive entry barriers are not only tolerated, they're flaunted as symbols of excellence.
"A lot of Chinese passengers judge the quality of airlines based on the quality of their flight attendants, meaning are they pretty or not pretty," said Luo Man, a media director at China Southern, the country's largest carrier.
Good looks are such a commodity these days, China Southern has put its annual recruitment drive on TV. Although men are not excluded from the jobs, only women are featured in the on-television selection process. The show, funded in part by the airline, follows a six-month audition -- complete with swimsuit competition and a race involving luggage, makeup brushes and drink trays -- through several major Chinese cities. Thousands of young women lined up for the chance to compete for 180 openings.
China Southern's website for the show, which provides news and information on the auditions, has had more than 1 million hits.
"This is every little girl's dream," said Lu Ju, 20, who has flown just three times in her life. "I want to be beautiful like the flight attendants. They can see the world and go places most people can't."
During a recent taping of the program in a posh resort on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, Lu and her fellow contestants lined up with military precision. All wore tight shorts and snug pastel T-shirts.
In teams of two, they raced against each other, one team member skipping rope and the other lugging a heavy suitcase. Then, off-camera, they changed from shorts to the button-down blouse, pencil skirt and black heels of a flight attendant. Back before the cameras as the clock ticked, they threw on rouge and eye shadow and touched up their hair in front of tiny hand-held mirrors, then grabbed trays of drinks to present to the judges.
