Had the examiners not been wearing the green uniforms, the interview might be taken as one for art college.

Some girls were dancing, some were singing and others were playing musical instruments.

Cao Liuliu sat in front of an officer, holding a pencil. Ten minutes later, face of the officer appeared on canvas. People beside her gasped in admiration.

"Competition of military recruitment this year is so fierce. We need to display our long suit so as to get enrolled," said the 22-year-old from the Nanjing Arts Institute in east China's Jiangsu Province.

Different from previous years, China for the first time recruits female soldiers in 2009.

"The female soldiers will mostly be working for communication, health care and entertainment such as dancing and playing musical instrument," said a local military recruitment official in Jiangsu.

Thousands of female soldiers will be recruited especially for the upcoming World Expo next year. They are supposed to become guide and security guards.

In Jiangsu, more than 2,000 registered in the provincial military recruitment office during the first three days, while 13 city-level recruitment offices in the province received an average of 500 each.

In the northeastern Jilin Province, thousands of girls applied to become soldiers, while just 200 are to be accepted. Many started to queue for registration at 6 a.m. in the freezing morning, where temperature was 12 degrees Celcius below zero.

The 22-year-old You Qi from Changchun Normal University was a major in Chinese literature, but she said to become a soldier had always been her dream.