The national congress of the Communist Youth League of China, the country's largest youth organization, has roused great attention in the Chinese cyberworld.

About 500 Websites are scheduled to cover the 15th CYLC National Congress, which is held every five years and scheduled to open tomorrow.

A host of popular commercial Websites, such as Sina and Sohu, plan to set up columns on the congress or provide links to the CYLC Website, while several leading news Websites will make live reports.

The 80-year-old youth organization, which now comprises nearly 70 million young people aged from 14 to 28, is trying its utmost to adapt itself to a new generation in China who grew up with the Internet.

"I will turn first to the Internet if I want to know what is going on at the congress," said Chen Hui, a 26-year-old office worker in Beijing municipality.

Chen, a veteran CYLC member since the age of 15, is an Internet-loving Chinese youth who loves to read books, listen to music, watch movies, buy clothes and seek news online since she opened her first e-mail account five years ago. She even ordered medicine online when SARS hit the city.

The new Chinese generation, mostly born in the late 1970s and later, is embracing the Internet in all aspects of life, not only work and entertainment, but also seeking love.

A 22-year-old girl, who calls herself "Pisces" online and declined to give her real name, is in love with a boy she met on a Bulletin Board System.

The two chat for one or two hours every day using MSN Messenger voice chat software, after they met online when the boy was sent overseas for training for three months.

Pisces said that one of her best friends had married the man that she first dated online.

However, there are also earnest and serious young people who like to talk about political issues and some social problems at various BBS and on-line communities.

A bunch of young people, some of whom are students, often meet to exchange ideas about the most heated domestic and international events daily on the Cycnet.com BBS, the largest youth and teenager-oriented Website.

They enjoy the flexible and open atmosphere at the Website worrying little about "political incorrectness."

The Website, founded by the CYLC in 1999, registers more than 3.5 million daily hits on average.

"We see what happens in Chinese society and try to do something as responsible citizens," said Pan Xihui, a postgraduate student at the prestigious China University of Geosciences.

Since June this year they have been talking about a volunteer project to urge college graduates to work in less-developed western regions initiated by the CYLC. Approximately 170,000 young people downloaded application forms for the project from the Website.

The CYLC set up a Website on July 8 especially for the national congress and the total number of hits had reached 35,000 by last Wednesday.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2003)