A railway station in a city. A 20-year-old man is leaving for Peking University. He fails to dissuade his father from crossing the railway tracks and clambering up and down platforms to reach fruit vendors outside the station. The father, though stout, staggers all the way back with some tangerines and gives them to his son. He pats the dirt off his clothes with a somewhat relieved look and says after a while: "I must go now. Don't forget to write me from Beijing." The son looks at his father's retreating figure mixing into the bustling crowd, with tears welling up in his eyes and blurring his sight.

The parting scene in prominent writer Zhu Ziqing's well-known essay, Beiying (Retreating Figure), has touched the heart of generations of Chinese people, with the tangerines symbolizing the profound love parents have for their children and smoothing one of the biggest transitions in life.

In the coming days, millions of Chinese parents will send their children to college. But both the times and the situation that Zhu so eloquently captured in his essay have changed. Today, many parents accompany their children all the way from home to their campuses tugging their heavy luggage behind.