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What's up, doc?

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily) Updated: 2016-12-12 07:01

Love them, hate them

China has come full circle from "To get rich is glorious" in the 1980s to "You'd better lie low if you're filthy rich because the whirlwinds of envy will sweep you away".

The internet has magnified the wealth gap, with websites incessantly hyping the lifestyles of the rich and then following it with blanket hatred of the high-profile demographic.

In recent years the voice of reason has appeared, arguing that the key is not how much wealth one has but how that wealth was accumulated, legally, ethically or not.

A tricky point of debate is the so-called original sin, which refers to the often less-than-upright way the first pot of gold was made, a "sin" that's said to tarnish most private entrepreneurs.

For many years Chen Guangbiao was China's most conspicuous spender. He would stack up a wall of bills and take photos with it. He claimed to be a big philanthropist, but has turned out to be a big showman who used philanthropy as a means to ingratiate himself into the circle of power.

I'm not discounting the desperate need for vanity that characterizes the nouveaux riche, but when the flaunting gets too tacky it indeed arouses suspicion that there is more than vanity at work.

Maybe someone of Guo Meimei's age would not think twice before posting expensive purchases made possible by a rich sugar daddy, but a mature entrepreneur would probably resist the temptation unless he or she is totally isolated from the internet culture.

Guo almost single-handedly ruined the reputation of the Red Cross when she gave herself a title affiliated with the organization and posted luxury items.