bangbang people

A vision of the future something a bit like Blade Runner here... fascinating stuff though...

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Invisible city: "Chongqing is not just urbanising, it is globalising. Little more than a generation ago, this was a city where Red Guards in Mao tunics chanted anti-imperialist slogans. Today, young people with money dress much like their counterparts in Birmingham, Chicago or Nagoya. If anything, their values are even more materialistic.

I am sitting in Falling, which Spiderman's boss He Qing recommended to me as the hottest nightspot in Chongqing. It is Wednesday night, but the dancefloor is packed with beautiful people moving to techno music. Our table has an 800 yuan (£57) minimum charge, which covers a bottle of vodka, a few imported beers and a plate of elegantly carved fruit.

He joins us, along with some of Chongqing's new rich, including the founder of a sweet factory, a restaurant owner and a bank employee. Almost without exception they are in their 20s, foreign educated and well connected - either through family or political ties - with the city's movers and shakers. 'No businessman can thrive unless they have contacts in the Communist party and the underworld,' I am told.

I feel uneasy spending more on a night's entertainment than bangbang man Yu earns from a month's gruelling work. I'm not the only one conscious of the gap. Qing tells me his plan for the future. 'Inequality and environmental destruction are the two biggest problems facing China.'"