Wikipedia defines the concept of “little emperors” as follows:

“Little Emperors” is a name that refers to only children in the People’s Republic of China after the one-child policy was implemented.

Attributed most frequently to increased spending power within the family unit and the parents’ desire for their child to experience the benefits they were denied, the syndrome results from the children’s sole command of the attention of their parents and grandparents.

Described as a problem so acute that it’s changing how society functions, the Little Emperor effect has grown beyond a side effect that the architects of China’s one-child policy could never have foreseen” into a “behavioral time-bomb.”

Here in Hong Kong we witness the syndrome on a daily basis, albeit for different reasons.  Here Filipino maids are made to carry children’s schoolbags by over-protective parents, while the latter (like in the picture I took this morning, below) walks with his hands behind his bag.