Business is China's latest youth fashion trend

BEIJING - When Cen Shen gave up a big salary with a foreign company in Guangzhou and went back his rural home in South China's Guangxi to run an online mango shop in 2012, most people thought he was crazy.

"People thought I should find a decent job in the city. Even my family weren't on my side," said Cen, 29, who graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in 2009.

Now Cen's online store has annual sales of more than 5 million yuan ($820,000) and he employs 17 graduates.

His e-commerce experience has also helped local farmers sell mangoes across the country, which, as he said, is a "beautiful response" to the doubters.

Cen is not alone. More and more young people are choosing to become their own bosses.

Zhang Tianyi, 25, a graduate of Peking University, opened his first noodle restaurant in downtown Beijing in April last year, two months before graduation. His Fu Niu Tang food chain now has four restaurants in the capital, with an estimated market value of over 10 million yuan.

In a new trend, young independent Chinese are seeking success, wealth and happiness by going it alone. The startup frenzy grips China from city to village.

The number of new Chinese firms has surged since the business registration system was overhauled in March last year, reducing the minimum capital threshold and streamlining administrative processes. About 844,000 new companies were registered in the first quarter of this year, up 38.4 percent from the same period last year. The registered capital of these new companies totalled 4.8 trillion yuan, up 90.6 percent year on year.

Many of these firms were launched by young people, focus on services, and are Internet-based.

"Business reforms have prompted investment in emerging industries and the service sector, as economic restructuring demands," said Chen Dun of Beijing Technology and Business University.