Medical, law graduates open restaurant to top up incomes

A group of 16 doctors and lawyers who graduated from two of China’s leading universities – Tsinghua and Peking – have opened a restaurant in Beijing to supplement their incomes, and are offering discounts to customers who have had academic articles published in Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index or Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index in the past five years, writes Catherine Wong for South China Morning Post.

According to local media, the eatery, named Liu Ye Dao – the Chinese name for the renowned British medical journal The Lancet – has gained a reputation for using healthy cooking methods.

Wang Jian, who masterminded the project with Cheng Si, said he decided to open the business as a side line after finding he could not afford to help a sick friend who was unable to pay for the surgery he needed. “I need a second job so that I don’t have to worry about the financial burden and just focus on doing my job as a doctor,” he was quoted as saying. The average annual salary for a doctor in China is CNY90,000 (about US$13,700), according to People’s Daily.
Full report on the South China Morning Post site