We Chinese have grown crazy about basketball. We watch the NBA on television, and Michael Jordan is a hero to us. A huge billboard with his picture stands over shoppers on Beijing’s Wangfujing Street, in the city center. At school, if there is a basketball court, we race to shoot baskets when we are not in class. Even the youngest of us wants to be another Yao Ming, maybe not as tall but just as famous.

A wall mural, a few streets away from Michael Jordan’s portrait, shows a traditional scene of Chinese children playing—a scene from the past. Hopscotch and tag were favored games. Folk toys made from wood offered amusement. Adults stood watch as the children moved about. In the painting, there isn’t a ball in sight.

China’s complex social economy is in the midst of great change. For years, small entrepreneurs have produced goods themselves and sold them in tiny shops and stands along the street. Walk almost any street in Beijing and it appears everything is for sale: clothes, vegetables, cleaning products, CDs, medicine, cooking utensils, electric guitars, tea, tourist trinkets, pineapple slices. The possibilities, for both sellers and buyers, are endless.

At the same time, China is part of the international market economy with its structured shopping malls, large department stores, and multinational chains. The lure of global marketing is strong, and the Chinese government is now trying to discourage small-scale businesses, because it thinks they disturb the “normal market economy.” But this action is not popular. First, a lot of customers like to buy items on the street, because prices are lower than in shopping malls. Second, many people cannot make a living without producing and selling their own goods. Instead of depriving small entrepreneurs of this right, the government should try to help them set up more discipline, organizing them together with relatively low fees.