Eat Potatoes If You Cannot Work: 2 Million Won Rural Camps Gain Popularity in China

▲ Participants in a summer camp in a rural Chinese village

Recently, so-called "rural summer camps," where parents pay to intentionally have their children experience hardship, have gained immense popularity among parents in China.

According to local media outlets such as China's Cover News, the defining feature of these camps is staying in remote rural farmhouses while completely cutting off access to smartphones and the internet.

Participating children must wake up early every day to chop firewood, feed livestock, and perform physical labor such as harvesting potatoes in the fields.

The program operates on a point system where participants earn scores for their labor to exchange for daily necessities. It is run so strictly that if children fail to meet their work quotas and fall short on points, they must make do with only boiled potatoes for their meals.

Costing up to 2 million KRW (about 10,000 yuan) for a roughly ten-day program held in rural areas of southern China such as Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, these camps continue to attract parents seeking to fix their children's poor lifestyle habits.

Camp organizers promote the program by claiming that "children experience hardship, realize that making money is not easy, and develop a sense of gratitude," but reactions among parents regarding its actual effectiveness remain mixed.

While some shared glowing reviews stating that "a child who used to be addicted to their phone completely changed after participating in the camp," others expressed negative reactions, noting that "habits like sleeping in and being a picky eater did not improve at all."

In response, local education experts pointed out that "short-term, forced labor alone cannot fundamentally resolve smartphone addiction or the habit of procrastinating."

They also criticized that "children showing signs of temporary remorse after being placed in a harsh environment is merely a short-term stress response and can hardly be considered true behavioral change."

(Photo: Captured from China's Cover News, Yonhap News)

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