'Ant tribe' in China feeling pinch from rising food and house prices, but fear chaos that could come if government collapses
Like the Tunisian whose self-immolation sparked a revolt, Xu Mingao is a young street vendor. Fourteen-hour days selling flatbread in Zhongguancun – the capital's Silicon Valley – earn him about 7,500 yuan (£709) a year.
Home is a tiny cubicle in a dusty, hastily constructed neighbourhood where adverts pasted to lampposts seek workers who can "eat bitterness" – endure the grind.
But the 30-year-old is "pretty happy" with his life: "The difference [from the old days] is huge. When I was small my family had to borrow money for my schooling and we wore hand-me-downs," he said.
He and his wife have built a house back in their home town in Anhui with their earnings and hope for an office career for their boy.
Rising expectations cannot always be met. Many of Xu's neighbours are members of China's "ant tribe", who benefited from an explosion in higher education only to end up unemployed or in poorly paid work. One neighbour, Tian, said: "I notice how everyone on my bus looks tired. No one seems happy.".
Like Xu, she is the child of farmers; unlike him, she has a degree and white collar job. Yet she feels she faces more pressure than her parents did, partly because others are so visibly doing better.
"The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor," she says.
Workers feel the pinch of rising food prices and property costs. Spiralling living costs among the urban poor and middle class disenchantment could prove a toxic mix for a government that has justified its rule largely on improving people's living standards.
But economists expect food inflation to fall back in the coming months and migrant wages in many parts of the country have risen rapidly thanks to labour shortages.
The party has also been careful to promote itself as "après nous le déluge", presenting itself as the only force standing between China and chaos.
"People feel they have something to lose," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch.