We usually provide some charts for the historic photos in this column, but this time we have none. Because today what our lens targets is a world that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) still does not cover.

It is not a seamy side of society. But statisticians trained in the era of the planned economy, and in the kind of economics that single-mindedly focuses on production, still need time to accept it as part of the Chinese business sphere.

From China`s official statistical yearbook, published each year by NBS, we still cannot find comprehensive data about China`s leisure business.

After a search on the Internet, one can find some quite bizarre and often mutually contradictory figures. One report says that in 2000, there was a total of 16.6 billion yuan business generated in the Chinese "cultural market".

It looks like a big number. But wait a second, think about the size of the population, which is 1.3 billion, that figure actually means that for the whole year, each Chinese spent no more than 13 yuan on culture. Amusing indeed. With that amount, you can`t afford even one trip to the amusement park.

In another report, online games were said to have directly generated 8.7 billion yuan for the Chinese telecommunication industry in 2003. That is already half of China`s "culture" if we are to believe the previous report.

On a regional basis, Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong, could report more than 2 billion yuan of investment in the fixed assets in local cultural, sports and entertainment in 2007. While similar industries in Shenyang, provincial capital of Liaoning, claimed to have generated as much as 10.41 billion yuan of value-added income.

According to a survey in 2007, by a Beijing-based magazine, more than 65 percent of the respondents claimed to have 2,000 to 5,000 yuan in their "leisure budget", comparing less than 60 percent a year ago.

At the same time, some industry observers even went so far as to declare without citing any figure, that the nation`s "entertainment market" must be worth 1 trillion yuan.

Forget the mind-boggling figures and statistical categories. The simple fact is that, as we can see from the two photos, an insignificant after-hour activity back in the 1980s has grown into a respectable business attracting urban, middle-class youngsters - and with enough cash flow to place itself in decent business houses.

Not surprisingly, China has produced its snooker champion, Ding Junhui, a young man who, between 2006 and `07, won three world titles before his 20th birthday. Maybe he was just like those kids playing on the roadside shabby tables when he was little.