Goal of big-city trip is to inspire left-behind kids

She hadn't seen her dad for almost a year, so Fang Yuan, 14, now 163 centimeters tall, twitched slightly and smiled uneasily when her father, a construction worker, walked up and tried to hold her in his arms. The hug, with the daughter's arms barely raised, lasted for about two seconds.

"Since 2004, when Dad first left me for work, I only asked him once, 'Please don't go'," Fang said. "But I don't remember how he responded."

Fang is one of China's 61 million left-behind children, whose parents left them for jobs that paid better, usually far away from their hometowns.