Don't forget that with modernization and urban renewal, China isn't the interesting and very different place to visit that it was in the '80s.
While I agree with you in the general sense (i.e. cities are morphing into shopping malls), interesting and rural is never far away.
I got lost in the area pictured below last weekend, and it's less than 10 miles from where I live.
There were also street vendors selling live pigeons and the like.