A GOOD CAUSE: Children all over China are donating money to the quake victims. -- PHOTO: AP

'He has always been tight-fisted with money,' said Madam Wang, 38, a taxi driver in Cheng-du city, the capital of earthquake-hit Sichuan province in China's south-west.

So when 10-year-old Wu Hong announced last week that he was going to donate 50 yuan (S$10) from his savings to victims of the May 12 quake, Madam Wang was stunned, but also pleased.

The sum was almost half of what her son had received from relatives during the Chinese New Year, she said.

The other 51 pupils in Wu Hong's Primary Four class in Chengdu also dug into their pockets. They managed to raise more than 1,500 yuan for the earthquake victims. The class had never before responded so readily to pleas for help.

Their total contribution to past charitable causes had not exceeded 500 yuan each time, said Madam Wang.

'I was so proud,' she told The Straits Times. 'I thought, perhaps our young kids actually do have some sense of responsibility after all.'

Single children doted on by their parents, and the first generation to be brought up in a time of unprecedented economic prosperity in China, young Chinese in their 20s and teens have spawned much discussion and drawn positive, as well as a slew of unflattering, generalisations.

They may be more entrepreneurial, better-educated and adaptable than their parents, but critics say those born after 1980 - two years after China's one-child policy was instituted to curb population growth - are also materialistic and self-centred.

Dubbed the 'Me' generation, China's youth often receive flak - including from their own parents - for seemingly lacking their elders' political values, sense of social responsibility as well as the ability to chi ku or literally 'eat hardship'.

But their non-stereotypical response to the quake disaster is changing the opinions of the people who know them best - their parents.

In Sichuan's quake zones, thousands of young volunteers are helping to distribute food, tents and medicine.

When The Straits Times spoke to the parents of half a dozen young Chinese, all said their children had surprised them with their concern for disaster victims.

Beijing driver Jiang Shunli said his 21-year-old son Jiang Chao's decision to donate blood and 200 yuan astonished him.

'I usually nag him to come home early, stop hogging the computer and to stop wasting money. This time, I praised him instead,' said Mr Jiang, 48.

Madam Chen Shulin, 51, said she was delighted at her son Yi Pei's decision to donate 2,000 yuan - an entire month's pay - to the China Red Cross, which is helping the millions made homeless by the quake.

'I have never seen him do one unselfish thing before this. I was resigned to the fact that we had raised a generation of good-for- nothings who care only about themselves,' said Madam Chen, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner in Beijing.

Her 25-year-old son said young people's desire to help was not a one-off effort.

'We behave differently at home and when we're outside. At home, we can be pretty slovenly and that is why our parents think we are selfish and useless,' he pointed out.

'But outside, young people like me are emotional and easily influenced. So when we are moved by something, we feel like we cannot just sit around and do nothing,' added Mr Yi, who works in sales at a ceramics factory.

Like him, most young Chinese have been touched by the accounts they have read online in blogs and other websites that they turn to for first-hand, non-official news, pictures and videos of the natural disaster.

And it was the plight of other young people their age that moved them the most.

'Many students are affected. They could have been our classmates or friends,' said Jiang Chao, who graduates from the Beijing Science and Technology Vocational University this July.

'This is the first huge disaster that we have experienced in our lifetime, and through our actions, we can prove that some negative perceptions of us are wrong,' he added.

Meanwhile, China's Cabinet said the confirmed death toll stood at 67,183 as of midday yesterday, with a further 20,790 people missing.

tracyq@sph.com.sg