BEIJING - An 8-year-old girl runs 2,212 miles to Beijing in 55 days. A 10-year-old swims in a river with her hands and feet bound. And then there's 4-year-old Yang Yang, riding a 1,000-pound beluga whale.
Kids' stunts such as these are becoming more common as Olympic fever rises with the approach of next summer's games. But don't expect any great outcry. In China, where one-child families are the government-enforced norm, pushing a child to overachieve is a social imperative.
Yang Yang's grandmother, 55-year-old Jing Xueying, dreams of the boy growing up to be a world champion swimmer. "That's the dream. I'm working hard here to achieve it ... I think my dream will come true," she told AP Television News at the aquarium where Yang Yang rode a beluga whale named Xiao Qiang.
Meanwhile, Zhang Huimin spent the summer running 40 miles a day from her home on the southern island province of Hainan to Beijing in northern China, her father trailing behind her on an electric bicycle.
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