On the Internet, meanwhile, these "white collar vendors" chat heatedly about how to stock goods, choose the right spot and bargain.

    A netizen named "Linxiaoyang" wrote in her blog on 163.com: "We may easily make several hundred yuan by dealing stocks on the Internet, but by standing on the street and selling goods, it feels much better even if you only make less than a hundred."

    Linxiaoyang's first intention was to make some extra money to pay off her car loan.

    A recent survey by ChinaHR.com, a website for job hunting, showed that more than 60 percent of the 1,463 young office workers polled said they would work at side-jobs, mostly to make more money.

    Another 18.3 percent said the reason was to "experience what it's like to set up a business" and 14 percent said just wanted to" taste something new."

    Young office workers, a generation born in the 1980s or late 1970s when China's economy began to boom, usually spend money freely. But their monthly salaries are often only 2,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan, depending on where they live.

    Yan Jirong, a professor at Peking University, said that being a street vendor can be seen as a new leisure activity among China's comparatively well-off class, just like trading online at taobao.com.

    Taobao, a website set up in 2003, has become popular among shopping-savvy young urban Chinese.

    Whatever their goal, "the biggest attraction for these so-called vendors is satisfaction and joy," Yan said.

    But the job is not always easy. They all have to deal with urban management staff, known in Chinese as "Chengguan", whose primary job is to clear the streets of vendors.

    "Most of the time, chengguan just tell us to pack and leave," Zhang Yuan said. "But they do get tough sometimes and confiscate our goods."

    A chengguan who works near the Beijing Modern Plaza said that the "current main solution" was to ask vendors to leave without using force.

    In Chengdu, on the other hand, regulations allow street stalls in certain areas at certain times, said Liu Jian, director of the law and regulations department of the Chengdu Urban Management Bureau.

    Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, is piloting a regulation allowing stalls in four of its 10 administrative districts. Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province, has also proposed to allow stalls on condition that "they don't affect transportation and the city's image."

    Hu Guangwei, a sociologist of the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said that the authorities should be tolerant about street vendors, noting that the office workers' new businesses could help boost consumption.

    Yan Jirong suggested the authorities assign certain venues for the vendors, something like a flea market in other countries.

    This is also what Zhang Yuan hoped for, a legitimate space for doing business.

    (Xinhua writers Liu Gang and Li Yunlu in Beijing and Yuan Jian in Chengdu contributed to this story.)