ABSTRACT
In the era of ‘reform’, economic activities that straddle the line between gambling and investment have reemerged as key categories of social practice for urban mainland Chinese people. Rotating credit cooperatives and underground finance developed in the 1980s and 1990s (Tsai 2004), along with social gambling (Festa 2006; Steimnuller 2011) and localised stock markets in Shanghai (Hertz 1998) and Shenzhen. Beginning in 2002, with the opening of the financial system, ‘The entire nation started to stir-fry stocks’ (qucmmin chaogu). In 2007, considered a milestone in the development of the stock market in China, millions more people opened accounts in the stock markets, and total active stock accounts exceeded 100 million, among which more than 70 per cent were personal accounts, representing approximately 1 out of every 20 Chinese people.
