Beigin Ma Hetai of Guangzhou takes regular weekend rock climbing trips to Yangshuo, a tourist city in the karst peaks about a day's drive from home. He piles into a car with friends and stays with another friend who owns a bar in Yangshuo. Ma owns his gear, a one-time expense, so his trips cost 100 yuan (US$12) to 200 yuan per trip, mostly in road tolls, an acceptable price for the average Chinese wage-earner. Scaling cliffs "meets needs" that ordinary nightlife and tourism - staples of China's young moneyed generation - cannot, says Ma, who has practiced the sport for three years. The number of people like Ma - practitioners of "extreme sports" like rock climbing, bungee jumping and skateboarding - has been increasing by about a factor of five each year in China since the mid-1990s, when extreme sports first appeared here.
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