When you're covered with lice, you don't itch; when you're up to your ears in debt, you stop worrying.
Mainland banks' generous lending policies have led to a fresh take on this old Chinese proverb about lice that is now being aimed at those who continue to spend freely even when they are saddled with massive debt.
Their relaxed attitude to being heavily indebted to banks is thanks to a product called Cun Di Dai in Chinese that allows home borrowers to make offsetting deposits with their bank that almost exempt them from paying any interest on the home loan the bank gives them.
As the incentive is increasingly taken up by homebuyers, the question surfacing among analysts is whether the product could play havoc with already jittery equity and property markets.
Chen Peijun, 36, a Shanghai resident who raised a 1.5 million yuan (HK$1.73 million) home loan from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is typical of the borrowers taking up the product.
The engineer, employed by a foreign-funded car parts maker, used the loan to buy a three-bedroom flat at the end of 2008. He planned to repay part of the loan when he sold his existing two-bedroom unit and when he did sell, he took the 1.1 million yuan he raised from the sale to ICBC to repay part of his loan.