India, Oct. 21 -- In China, parents are sending their city-raised children to gruelling countryside camps to experience manual farm labour. At these "hardship summer camps," campers spend up to a month doing demanding tasks such as feeding pigs, gathering firewood, cleaning dung, and even cooking by themselves.

Though this trend is not new and has existed for years, this year reportedly saw a massive surge in parents spending thousands of yuan to give their kids a taste of hardship.

The "chi ku", or "eat bitterness", hardship camps are advertised for children aged 6 to 16, CNA reported. They are mainly organised in areas like Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou. These events promise to "toughen up a generation" that many Chinese parents believe...