Flash-playing is all about meeting strangers in a strange city for just a day. And it is emerging as the stress-buster of choice among young urbanites.

This weekend, why not fly to a random city and spend the day with a stranger, part at the end of the day and never see each other again?

It sounds like a romantic film, but this is a novel activity for some young urban Chinese called "shanwan", or "flash-play".

The flash-play community on douban.com is one of the most popular in China and has signed up thousands of members, while websites devoted to flash-play have also emerged. On QQ, the country's most popular instant messaging service, several flash-play groups have been established.

These flash-players even have a slogan, which is splashed on the home page of bbs.oyesgo.com: "To meet a stranger in a strange city for coffee."

"Because of my high-pressure work, I use weekends to adjust my life. Fortunately, there is fast transport, the airplane, which can take me to another city and back in a short time," says Li Xu, a 26-year-old banker.

He invented the term flash-play, inspired by terms like "flash-mob", which refers to a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public space, perform a pointless act, and then quickly disperse. He created a page for flash-play on the knowledge-sharing website zhidao.baidu.com, and contributes content.

According to the web page, flash-play means: "A form of trip in which people find companions quickly through the Internet, and use advanced transportation to travel to another city together."

A flash-play is usually limited to one day and does not extend overnight. If flash-players get along well during the day, they can continue to be together the next day, but that is not considered flash-play any more. Flash-players generally fall into two main groups: Those who like to travel, and those who want to network or party.

Questions:

1. What does flash-play mean?

2. What is a flash-mob?

3. Why do young people like to flash-play?

Answers:

1. Flash-play, according to one website, means: "A form of trip in which people find companions quickly through the Internet, and use advanced transportation to travel to another city together."

2. “Flash-mob refers to a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public space, perform a pointless act, and then quickly disperse. Flash-play is a spinoff of flash-mob.

3. The reasons young people like to flash-play is because they like to travel, they like to network or they like to party.

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About the broadcaster:

Renee Haines is an editor and broadcaster at China Daily. Renee has more than 15 years of experience as a newspaper editor, radio station anchor and news director, news-wire service reporter and bureau chief, magazine writer, book editor and website consultant. She came to China from the United States.