Think about this for a minute: Chinese parents living in city apartments, surrounded by gadgets and comfort, will spend thousands of yuan to send their kids somewhere rural. No Wi-Fi, no phones, definitely no air-conditioning. Instead, the kids spend their summer sweating in cow sheds, hauling firewood, cleaning up after livestock. The idea behind it is as unusual as the activities themselves: parents want their children to experience hardship so they learn to appreciate the comfortable lives they have grown up with.Now, the idea sounds harsh, but there’s a method behind it. These ‘chi ku’ camps, which literally means ‘eat bitterness’, promise to teach children tougher lessons than any classroom: discipline, gratitude, and a sense of independence.Per the South China Morning Post, by summer 2026, these hardship camps were trending big time, especially as videos of homesick, teary-eyed kids circulated online. Most campers are between six and sixteen years old, as the programmes promise to teach discipline, independence, gratitude and resilience through manual labour and a temporary departure from urban comforts. Parents fork out anywhere from 5,000 yuan (approximately US$700) for ten days to over 10,000 yuan for a month. And while it started with a few adventurous families, now it’s a heated national debate: is struggling on a farm really the best way to build resilience?
‘Chi ku’: What exactly are China’s hardship camps?
For starters, chi ku isn’t some new-age experiment. The phrase “eat bitterness” is deeply woven into Chinese culture: it’s the belief that going through tough times can shape character and help people appreciate what they have. Although similar programmes have existed since the early 2000s, their popularity surged during the summer of 2026. These camps take that philosophy and serve it up to urban kids who are used to city comforts, often in rural regions like Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, where children are temporarily immersed in agricultural life.Most camps are run by private companies, not schools. Their pitch? Strip away the luxuries and plunge the kids into country life. Kids wake up early, pick tea leaves, dig potatoes, chop wood, scrub cow stalls, and if they don’t finish chores, there’s no swapping them for snacks or screen time. Some camps make them cook for themselves, old-style, over an earthen stove, with barely any seasoning.
What do children do at these camps?
The activities in these camps are designed to replicate the everyday responsibilities of farming families, often under physically demanding conditions.Take the ‘Swapped Lives’ camp, for example, run by Haoshi Study Tours deep in the Zhejiang mountains. For six days, nine- to twelve-year-olds work alongside local farmers, gathering firewood for hours just to cook a quick meal. According to CNA, children can spend three to four hours gathering, bundling and carrying firewood in baskets, only to use it to prepare a meal that takes around 10 minutes to eat. They also pick tea leaves, which can be exchanged for food supplies donated to disadvantaged families. In fact, picking tea leaves isn’t just an activity; it’s currency, exchanged for supplies that go to poor families. Cleaning cow stalls? Just ten to twenty minutes, but the dung becomes fertilizer or fuels biogas. One particularly grueling challenge is having kids carry a kilo of rice up a mountain before eating simple rice outside an abandoned school.
How much do China’s hardship camps cost?
Despite the rustic setup, the camps don’t come cheap. Ten days costs around 5,000 yuan (about US$700); month-long stays push past 10,000 yuan. Kids bunk together, with six to eight of them in every room, in basic beds. Phones? Taken away upfront. Camps operate on a points system: complete tasks, earn credits, exchange for food and toiletries. Sometimes, if you don’t rack up enough points, you eat plain potatoes for dinner. That’s led critics to question whether genuine hardship is getting muddled with punishment.
Why are Chinese parents sending their children to hardship camps?
Mostly, they worry their kids are too spoiled. Many grew up scraping by, and now their children have everything: private schools, enrichment classes, endless tech, comfortable homes. But there’s a real concern: will these kids know how to handle life’s curveballs?Tong Lu, founder of Haoshi, said that children today don’t really grasp what it takes to earn a living or make a meal. Past generations remember hardship, as many parents and grandparents survived times when food and warmth were rare. They credit those trials for building resilience, and now fear a cushy upbringing makes their own kids soft.
Is the ‘hardship camp’ too hard on kids?
The emotional side of the ‘chi ku’ culture isn’t subtle either. Videos show kids crying over chopped wood, dragging heavy loads, or begging to go home. One boy complained his Shanghai parents shelled out for a plane ticket just so he’d work on a farm. Another pleaded with his mom to let him come back and study instead.It’s important to note that not everyone hates the experience; some grow comfortable with chores, and camps try to ease homesickness with parent-written letters.But all the tears and drama raise questions: are the kids ready for this level of challenge? Do hardship camps really build resilience? Psychologists warn that suffering alone doesn’t guarantee resilience. Setoh Peipei, head of psychology at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, told CNA that kids get stronger when adults help them through manageable difficulties, not when they’re simply tossed into tough situations. Desiree Qin Baolian from Michigan State University points out that a camp might help one child, but another could be traumatized. Short-term obedience isn’t the same as real emotional growth.In the end, chi ku camps shine a light on a deeper dilemma. Parents genuinely want their kids to grow tough, but there’s a fine line between teaching responsibility and making childhood needlessly hard. Sure, chores and cooking teach independence. But resilience isn’t something you can buy, package up, and deliver in a week of sweaty labor. Kids need chances to struggle, but they also need adults who’ll have their backs when things get too rough.