Hold the final chapter

A new kind of shopping in which you can enjoy stylish architecture and snazzy interior design as you buy stuff, or down cups of coffee as you read, is staving off the demise of bookshops

The streets around Chunxi Road in downtown Chengdu help make up one of the wealthiest and swankiest areas you will find in Southwest China. In the hustle and bustle of the sprawling low-rise Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li shopping center, exquisitely dressed young women pose for photos that, with the glass-clad Gucci store or the pastel blue walls of a Tiffany store as their glamorous backdrop, will no doubt shortly adorn the pages of social media or websites. It is quite likely that the car that roars by now and again will be a Ferrari or a Porsche.

In short, everything here seems to be designed to charm the eye - but you can almost guarantee that it will also tax your pocket.