The normally bustling city of Johannesburg becomes a ghost town over Christmas and the New Year as droves of its citizens head for the coast or rural hinterland. The highways are congested and, as often as not, vehicles are overloaded.
With predictable certainty newspapers record gory figures of carnage on the roads and detail the tragedies which overtake many families in the annual exodus.
A sharp-eyed observer perched on a hilltop would, however, discern a pattern in the seemingly undifferentiated outward flow of traffic and people. The drivers of the newer cars and their passengers would be whites. Their destination would be South Africa's marvellous coastal resorts, stretching from Cape Town to the border with Mozambique.
The older vehicles, many of them mini-buses serving as taxis and crammed with commuters, would be driven by blacks. They would be taking their passengers to the under-developed rural areas, also known as "native reserves" or "tribal homelands".
More than five years after the African National Congress took over the reins of government, whites, who constitute barely more than 10 per cent of the population, still account for the lion's share of the national income (and an even larger share of the property). Thus 65 per cent of white families are located in the richest 10 per cent of households.
That does not mean there have been no significant changes since 1994, the year which witnessed the inauguration of South Africa's first black president. There has, not all of it necessarily auspicious. The percentage of white families in the richest 10 per cent of households has fallen from more than 80 to 65 per cent and is still dropping.
Conversely the percentage of black families in the top strata has nearly doubled, rising from less than 10 per cent to 22 per cent.
But of income, there is another, perhaps more and ominous trend. The rich, including a growing number of blacks, are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The share of national income of the big earners in the top 10 per cent is increasing. Rubbing shoulders with the richest of the rich are black men and women who have become millionaires in the space of a few years.
Conspicuous in their ranks are Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, former secretary-general of the ANC, and Mr Dikgang Moseneke, former deputy leader of the Pan Africanist Congress.
A recent investigation into the pattern of income distribution shows that income inequality in the black community is even more marked than inequalities between the white and black communities.
The investigators, Andrew Whiteford and Dirk van Seventer, write of the wage gap between the rich and poor in black society: "Inequality is comparable with the most unequal societies in the world."
To return to the hypothetical hilltop observer: he or she would be unlikely to see the new black elite speeding down the highway in a limousine; they would probably be flying to the closest airport to their holiday hideouts before driving on in a luxury car.
The ANC today openly calls for the rapid emergence of a black capitalist class. If there is concern that the new elite is a replica of the old one, except for colour, it is not voiced frequently or loudly.
Dr Mamphela Ramphele, a distinguished black intellectual and the outgoing vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, laments the emergence of "a disturbing culture of silence" in South African universities.
"White academics do not speak out on issues of national concern anymore because they are afraid they will be labelled racist," she explains. "Black academics do not criticise government because of misplaced loyalty born out of a comradeship . . . in the struggle against apartheid."