‘We try to enrich his life and spiritual world’
Print Edition
Cheng Zirui is an acclaimed 10-year-old singer who performs at various galas and studies performance art. One might think he’s an indulged, driven-only child, but he’s not.
He does a little regular housework, carries his own luggage, eats box meals when he performs on trips, carries his own book bag to school every day — his parents don’t carry it for him, unlike many parents. He even does basic repair on his five-year-old mountain bike, a gift from his family after he won a singing contest.
Cheng’s father, Cheng Yaoyan, 43, teaches at a railway engineering laboratory at Tongji University, and his wife is a senior executive in a consulting company.
Together they earn around 400,000 yuan (US$65,600) a year. They estimate that around an eighth is spent on their son.
Though they could afford to, they do not lavish gifts or fancy clothes on him.
“We try our best to enrich his life and his spiritual world,” said Cheng senior. “We spend money on what he is interested in. We don’t want to become parents so keen to ‘make’ their children succeed that they push them to attend numerous courses. Our son has freedom to choose, and his creativity is preserved.”
Young Cheng seldom gets birthday presents. Instead, his family spends on education, cultural enrichment, and personal development. He takes one-on-one English lessons and also studies piano, guitar and music at the Little Star Arts Troupe. All the training and courses cost around 23,000 yuan a year.
The family frequently take in acclaimed musical dramas and movies, which costs around 2,500 yuan a year.
They spend on travel to broaden the boy’s horizons and expose him to different cultures. This year they took extended trips to Japan and South Korea. The boy’s airfare and travel expenses were around 15,000 yuan.
“When I travel with my parents, I carry my own luggage,” said young Cheng.
“Sometimes we walk for long time and though I feel exhausted, it’s still a lot of fun,” he told Shanghai Daily.
The boy cooperated with British saxophonist Andrew Young in the song “Amazing Grace” in a Beijing performance. He has been praised by Internet users for his interpretation of English songs such as “Danny Boy” and “You Raise Me Up.”
Unlike some Chinese parents who are keen to buy their children expensive fashion brands, Cheng’s parents choose sensible clothes, spending around 5,000 yuan a year, a relatively small amount.
They seldom dine out, except for the occasional steak dinner as a treat for the boy. When Cheng takes his son to perform at TV stations around China, the boy takes along packed meals to save time.
“When I was a little boy, the most exciting present I got from my parents was a fresh cream cake, which was very rare in 1970s Shanghai,” Cheng recalls. “For my birthday, my mother took a long bus ride to buy the cake and on the way back, she even held the cake box above her head so it would not get crushed.”
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