Despite China's astonishing economic growth, it has gotten harder for the average person to get by, especially in bigger cities. When most people can't depend on their annual pay to keep pace with China's official rates of inflation, it's no wonder that salacious reports of China's Paris Hilton-types -- the sons and daughters of the wealthy and political elite -- are generating negative reactions.
Here, a sales representative shows a 24,000 USD 22-carat gold thread mattress and matching 1,000 USD 22-carat gold thread pillows made by the Italian firm Magniflex at a luxury goods fair in Shanghai on Oct. 10, 2008. The three day event 'The Fair' was re-named from the former 'Millionaires Fair,' and it hopes to attract more than 15,000 wealthy Chinese to view the luxury cars and goods on display.
A boy looks on as models pose with a Mercedes-Benz R350 car during a promotion for property owners in a wealthy residential district on Oct. 14, 2006, in Chongqing Municipality. In 2005, China's richest segment of society owned $1.59 trillion, nearly two-thirds of the country's GDP, trailing just behind Japan in the Asia-Pacific region.
Golf coach Garth Cusick, on the left, reminds a youngster of etiquette during a lesson at a golf course in Beijing on June 11, 2007. The number of Chinese golfers has soared from nearly zero two decades ago to more than a million playing on about 300 courses nationwide as the country's dynamic economic growth allows more time for leisure pursuits.
Chinese golf officials are increasingly pinning their hopes on children taking up golf as a way to broaden the appeal of a sport seen as the hobby of deal-making business executives, but with its elitist image, golf remains a sensitive symbol of a widening rich-poor gap in a country where typical green fees of 600-1,000 yuan (about $75-130) are more money than millions of Chinese will make in a month.
A Chinese visitor tastes Grand Cru wine on March 30, 2010, at the Grand Pontet castle in Saint-Emilion, western France. French vineyards launched the annual Bordeaux wine futures market that week, boasting a blockbuster vintage they hoped would revive their flagging fortunes and lure wealthy Chinese buyers.
