A choir troupe of Chinese children perform at California Disneyland in mid-July. (Photo/Global Times)

Spoiled princes and princesses

Attending a summer camp in the US can be challenging for some children, and even for their parents at home. Most of the kids, as the only child and the center of each family, have never lived a day without the parents. This means spending time with a tour group thousands of kilometers away from home is something unbearable for those who have been spoiled since birth.

In an extreme case, a 12-year-old boy couldn't get to sleep in the first couple of days of the journey, because he was used to sleeping in the bed of his father and didn't have a bedroom of his own. He was unable to immerse himself in the trip and had to call his father every hour.

He was not alone, as a number of students in his 40-member group showed signs of discomfort. One of their teachers said this exposed failures of parenting. The parents needed to feel needed, and couldn't allow their children to be independent, which hampered their development.

Luckily, after several nights knocking on the teacher's door, the boy got used to sleeping in a hotel room without parents.

Diverse views

Ren Yujie, who sent her 9-year-old daughter on one of the trips, said she found her daughter had changed after coming back from the US. "She became more independent, more confident, while at the same time more considerate of others," Ren said of her daughter, who assisted her teacher in looking after a group of 11 students during the trip to the US.

Another parent, Yin Ming, said her son loved America, and would like to attend American colleges and stay there afterwards. "Americans are kind, the weather is fine, and there are no mosquitoes," said the 7-year-old.

Wang Jingbo, an 8th grader from a middle school in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, wasn't particularly impressed by the trip after a two-week tour in the East Coast. But he said the trip broke some of his stereotypes about the US. "American people run red lights, too," he pointed out. Wang did admit, however, that cars in the US would stop for pedestrians and that people seemed happy and relaxed in and outside colleges.

The biggest problem of the summer camp tours, according to Wang Yi, a father who was traveling with his son's group from Changsha, Hunan Province, is the young age of the children, which can make it hard for them to comprehend what they see. The campus tour for his son, at 6 years old, was nothing more than a sightseeing visit.

The booming market for student summer camps has prompted some education experts to call for stricter supervision of the groups. Shang Chongsheng, a professor with the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Wuhan University, said the overseas summer trips aren't always worth the high prices, as some courses could be done well in China, according to the People's Daily.

But still, the surging demand for these summer camp tours ensures there is no sign the market will cool.