Fu Ninghui is happier with her new life after moving to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province.
Last year, after living and working for six months as a translator in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, the 24-year-old relocated to Zhengzhou, one of the country's "new first-tier cities".
Shenzhen is one of the four existing first-tier cities, along with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.
Fu said Zhengzhou offers a much slower pace of life and places less pressure on young people compared with existing first-tier cities.
"I no longer have to spend huge amounts of time at work or on commuting, which means I have more time for the things that I'm interested in, such as practicing yoga," she said.
Like many graduates, Fu's first stop after leaving college with a bachelor's degree in translation was a first-tier city to pursue opportunities in both her career and personal life.
However, she soon found that events did not pan out the way she had expected. Competition for translators was fierce in Shenzhen, and she often felt she was at a disadvantage. Property prices were also too high for young people to afford.
It was not long before Fu decided to move to Zhengzhou, the biggest city and the only "new first-tier" one in Henan, her native province.
The term "new first-tier cities" was first coined by the Chinese media six years ago, through rating cities on the basis of five factors: richness of commercial resources; convenience of intercity transportation; the active lives of the urban population; the diversity of lifestyles; and development potential.
Using these factors, 15 centers have been recognized as new first-tier cities. Along with Zhengzhou, they include: Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province; Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang; Wuhan, the Hubei provincial capital, Shenyang, capital of Liaoning, and Kunming, capital of Yunnan.