His seminal study of consumption behavior and preferences, conducted earlier this year in greater Beijing, showed that children's preferences determined 69% of the family's overall spending.

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For now, there are no plans for the children to leave Beijing.

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Yang's boss Tang Shubei could make his own visit in February, accompanying a children's chorus from Beijing.

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But all 300 of them have one thing in common: they are children of migrant workers who have come to Beijing in search of a better life.

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In a 2010 study of 120 children ages 7, 9 and 11, researchers at Beijing Normal University in China found kids increasingly told altruistic lies to avoid hurting others' feelings.

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Chu Zhaohui, of the Ministry of Education's Central Institute for Educational Research, says Beijing could afford to accommodate all of its more than 400, 000 migrant children, some 40, 000 of whom have little choice but to use unlicensed schools.

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"Since his Beijing victory, five more boxing clubs have sprung up and around 5, 000 children have taken up the sport, " says his father, Mahipal Singh.

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By the Qing dynasty (1644 to1912), many Huizhou men had consolidated their capital to open a string of pawnshops in major cities such as Beijing, and they funnelled their profits home to fund the construction of lavish residences for their wives and children.

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