Beijing's suburbs are a far cry from the glittering city centre and many of the residents who spend their days building the city's highways walk home on dirt tracks in the dark. This suburb less than 40 minutes from the Forbidden City is home to Beijing Mingyuan School. The school's several hundred students all belong to the capital's million-strong floating population. Their parents left their countryside villages to seek work in the city and their children have followed them. Mingyuan School has basic amenities: the classrooms are dark, students sweep the rubbish from their classrooms themselves, dumping it in wicker baskets at the door and there is a pervading smell of drains. According to the China Daily, a national census in 2000 revealed there were approximately 19.8 million migrant children in China. As it points out, however, the migrant population has doubled in size since then. Migrant children are likely to pass under the authorities radar in a large...