Wearing black ties and cocktail dresses, and sipping imported French red wines, hundreds of young people gathered in a five-star hotel on a late October night, chatting and clinking glasses.

One could mistake the gathering as one for Chinese expats in some European or American city, but it is actually in Beijing's financial hub.

Xie Jinbiao, the host and head of event organizers Ehuigui (literally Once You are Back), said this was no ordinary networking evening.