Clad in board shorts and flip-flops, Xu Wen looks pretty much like any young man on summer break from university. Back from a hot day at the beach, he is relaxing outside his local Walmart in outer Shanghai.
But Mr Xu, 22, is no student. And he was not playing in the surf. He was at Jinshan beach behind the controls of a 13-tonne Hitachi excavator, knocking down old buildings to clear the way for construction.
The Chinese economy is slowing and is on track for its weakest year in a more than a decade. But someone forgot to give the memo to Mr Xu. “This is the busiest year in a while. It’s a lot busier than last year,” he says. “I keep getting called to new projects and there’s a lot of pressure to be fast.”
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