Chinese cyber space has been seeing a new saying these days, "wealthy people are willful."

In the past few days, several cases involving seemingly incredible acts of the rich have caused more netizens to leave comments online using the new catch phrase.

A village official in Tangshan, Hebei Province held a luxurious wedding for his daughter with a motorcade of 30 Rolls-Royce Phantom cars; a Shanghai billionaire and art collector Liu Yiqian paid HK$348.4 million ($44.9 million) for a Tibetan tapestry at an auction and a young entrepreneur vowed to give out 100 million yuan next year as a bonus for his employees.

"Wealthy people are willful" does not look like a description soaked in the hatred of the rich. Instead, the phrase is more of a joke. It does help people look at the wealth gap in China, though in a mild way.

In a society that places social equality at a relatively high stage, the gap between the rich and poor has always been a sensitive issue. It is important to narrow this gap. But it is also important for wealthy people to communicate with the public in a healthy way.

Among the above-mentioned cases, the luxurious wedding in Tangshan garnered the largest number of negative comments. Most people will or have experienced their own weddings, they can easily comprehend how boastful and willful the Tangshan wedding's hosts are, and will feel the imbalance.

Public opinion toward the art collector who spent hundreds of millions and the young boss who promised huge bonuses for employees was more tolerant. The difference in reactions show that the public does not just simply hate the rich. The public are more resentful of the way some rich people flaunt their wealth or when the rich do bad things.

Like Chinese government officials who still have space and opportunities to improve their image, the collective image of Chinese tycoons also can be rebuilt.

Actually there are already many wealthy people who have become idols to the young because of their positive reputations.

Traditional Chinese culture has always demanded a higher standard from the elite. When the rich people overlap with the elite, they will also shoulder higher moral standards. Their willfulness needs a boundary, which is whether their acts can be accepted or even admired by the public.

More rich people will emerge as the country heads further toward a market economy. The hatred toward the government officials and the rich should be temporary. All parties in society need to work hard to seek harmony between the rich and society as a whole. 

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