Newly rich Chinese take a shine to gold

Li Zhixin spent weeks planning his one-day family tour of Beijing's historic sites, but instead found himself in one of the city's shopping malls, watching his wife happily trying on gold necklaces.
"I can't complain -- we just like gold," said the 30-year-old steel plant worker from Tangshan, an industrial city southeast of Beijing.
"Gold is a better store of wealth than platinum," he added, as his mother-in-law counted a wad of cash beside him. "Of course, diamonds are lovely. But we can't afford the big ones and are not interested in small stones."
They finally bought a pendant necklace for more than 3,000 yuan (439 dollars), more than two months' income for an average Chinese urban resident.
With per-capita disposable income in cities up 17.2 percent to 13,786 yuan in 2007, gold jewellery is no longer beyond the reach of masses of Chinese consumers on the lookout for something luxurious.