Billionaires live the high-life in China's hospital hot spot

When I asked a taxi driver in Putian city, Fujian province, if he knew Dongzhuang town, he gave me a look that seemed to say, "Are you kidding me? Heck, yeah!"

Dongzhuang, with a population of 80,000, is located about 30 km from downtown Putian. It's home to "about 21,000 people in the healthcare business in more than 100 cities across the country", according to the local Meizhou Daily, and about 80 percent of China's private hospitals were established by entrepreneurs from the town.

When the car drove into Dongzhuang, I immediately realized that it's not just the high-profile nature of the place that had made the driver react the way he did.

Newcomers will be impressed by the fancy residential buildings - three-story houses are eclipsed by eight-story (or even higher) houses fitted with elevators. Some of the Western-style villas feature grand gilded gates, while the taller residences resemble royal palaces.

If not for the ads posted on the streets promoting andrology services and medical apparatus, I would have thought the town was a high-end retreat.

"It's not a typical rural area. The architectural extravagance makes the town a landmark in Pujian," said the driver, Lin Xinyong.

Local resident Zhang Guodong, 66, whose sons are involved in the medical sector, said that two decades ago, the town was an economically backward place where people made a simple living by selling oysters.

No medical background

The town has no real medical background and there is only one hospital. "But after several villagers made fortunes by acting as medical practitioners, many locals and people from other towns jumped on the bandwagon," Zhang said.

Because most of the young and middle-aged people run private hospitals in other cities, and only visit the town during Spring Festival, most of the luxurious houses are empty or are occupied by the elderly, he said.

According to Lin, during Spring Festival the medical bosses return home together in their sporty cars: "In the runup to the festival, you can see ads for tow trucks all over town. The streets are packed with flashy cars, such as Lamborghini and Porsche, and even BMWs look pretty unremarkable at that time of year."

Vendors of medical apparatus from across the nation add to the hustle and bustle as they attend the medical equipment exposition, which has been held annually in the town during Spring Festival since 2005.

"It's the opportune time for the salespeople to socialize with the hospital operators, and it's also a golden opportunity for me to make a profit because visitors swarm into town," Lin said.