The latest fad came to the fore in Shanghai last autumn, when more than 650,000 people reportedly competed for 10,000 spots at the city's night schools, a level of interest that caused the enrollment platform to crash on one occasion.
Shanghai's Citizen Night School for Arts' data showed that popular courses, such as classes in the Shanghai dialect and handmade leatherware, sold out within 10 seconds, while more than 300 courses were fully booked within an hour.
