The young people in China are certainly starting to be more negative towards the less affluent. I am not sure about Shanghai, but in Beijing there is an ever present Us v Them attitude in respect of non-Beijingers.

Perhaps a Taxi blog would have garnered more interest.

Re comment: I think the notion of “common people” and the connotations it has say a lot of a society. Back in Europe I was always shocked by the way people in UK use the term “working class”, like it is a different class from theirs. Never seen anything like that in other European countries. It is even more strange because English tend to be ultra-paranoid about PC when it comes to races, but when it comes to classes they don’t mind.

I never been to Australia, but I guess that anti-elite attitude has a lot to do with the history and the fact that there was never a powerful aristocracy there?

Regarding China: I think most Chinese don’t look down on the LBX simply because most of them are only 1 generation removed from poverty, they have experienced misery in their own life or in the parents’. This is changing though with the young generations and the children of the new rich.

Also it has to do something with the PC rhetoric: “look down on the laobaixing” sounds nastier here than in the West, it really feels like a mortal sin. The powerful do it all the time, of course, but they make sure it doesn’t show too much.