一个陈旧剧目又有了新的演绎。一群外来人员在一处房地产开发项目外抗议，要求支付拖欠的工资，而这一次的不同之处在于，抗议者是儿童。最后他们如愿以偿。

官方媒体新华社周三报道说，旅游企业新华石寨子公司已将1,400万元（合220万美元）款项交付云南省一家法院，以偿还与旅游城市大理一处房地产项目有关的债务。据新华社说，在这笔款项中，有800万元应付给参与项目建设的500名农民工。

新浪微博来自新浪微博的这张截屏图片显示了一位农民工的孩子在云南的抗议。他手拿一张白纸，上面写着：“我要吃牛奶，我要吃蛋糕。还父母血汗钱。”大约一个星期以前，中国国内媒体报道说，13名年龄在五岁到20岁的儿童和少年在大理购物与旅游综合设施“南国城”外排成一排，打出手写的标语，要求“南国城”的开发商把欠款还给他们的父母。

一个小女孩手里举着的标语写道：“我叫高家，我要吃饭，要上学，要吃牛奶，要吃饼干。”

中国网民对讨薪这种事见多了，有时候甚至感到厌烦，但儿童的出现似乎叩动了他们的心弦。于是，一个近几年不再受到关注的话题又引起人们新的兴趣。

农民工承担了中国城市里摩天大楼的实际建设工作，他们长期抱怨遭雇主盘剥。由于开发商没给建筑行业的农民工发工资，这些年来已经有许多起抗议事件、工人自杀事件发生。劳动法专家说，虽然法庭在薪资纠纷中有时候站在农民工一边，但它们没有多大的能力去执行自己的判决结果，特别是在开发商拥有政界人脉的时候。

大理事件出现转机似乎应归功于公众舆论。之前，尽管一家省级法院在两个月前就下令新华石寨子还账，但这家公司一直拒绝执行。

虽然拖欠工资问题导致的冲突在中国已经屡见不鲜，但在整个上周五，娃娃讨薪事件一直停留在百度热门话题排行榜的前列，并引起网民的广泛同情。

新浪微博的一位用户写道：“我们过得幸福的同时也会有无数的人没饭吃，没奶喝。”

并不是所有人都赞成利用儿童讨薪，一位微博用户问道：“让五岁的孩子去为自己讨欠薪，这样的父母啊……”

尽管儿童的出现无疑引起了关注，但这起农民工案件或许也受益于北京对贫富差距日益扩大这一问题充满忧虑的讨论。中国社会科学院上周发布关于中国城镇化的蓝皮书，提到城乡收入差距自1997年以来扩大了26%，现在城镇居民收入平均达到农村居民收入的五倍。

官方媒体周三引用华中师范大学中国农村研究院一份报告中的话说，中国的贫富差距正在逼近警戒线。

在开发商因信贷环境紧缩、政府抑制投机而受到打击之际，大理或许不是最后一个农民工子女替父母举牌抗议的地方。

An old story took on a new twist this month as a group of Chinese migrants protested outside a real estate development to demand payment of overdue wages. The difference this time: The protesters were children and they were successful.

Tourism company Xinhua Shizhaizi has handed over 14 million yuan ($2.2 million) to a court in southwestern China's Yunnan province to cover debts owned in connection with a real estate project in the scenic city of Dali, the state-run Xinhua news agency said Wednesday. Included in that sum is 8 million yuan in wages owed to 500 migrant workers involved in construction of the project, according to Xinhua.

The news comes roughly a week after local media reported 13 children, ranging in age from five to 20, had lined up outside a shopping and tourism complex in Dali known as Nanguo City, holding hand-written signs demanding the complex's developer pay their parents.

'My name is Gao Jia,' read the sign held by one little girl. 'I want to eat, to go to school, to drink milk, to eat cookies.'

The appearance of the children appears to struck a chord with China's sometimes jaded Internet users, prompting new interest in an issue that had fallen out of the headlines in recent years.

Responsible for the actual work of building the country's shiny new urban skylines, China's migrant workers have long complained of exploitation at the hands of employers. Failure by real estate developers to pay migrant construction workers has led to a number of protests and worker suicides over the years. Though courts have sometimes sided with workers in wage disputes, labor experts say, they have little power to enforce their decision, particularly when developers are politically connected.

Public opinion appears to have made the difference in Dali, where Xinhua Shihaizi had been refusing to pay despite being ordered to settle its bills by a provincial court two months ago.

While conflicts over unpaid wages have become routine, the children's protest hovered near the top of Chinese search engine Baidu's trending topics list throughout the day on Friday and garnered widespread sympathy from Internet users.

'While [a lot of us] are living cotent and happy lives, there are millions out there with no food to eat, no milk to drink,' wrote one user of Sina Corp.'s Weibo microblogging service Weibo.

Not everyone was thrilled with the use of children, including a disapproving microblogger who asked: 'What kind of parent lets their five year-old demand their unpaid wages?'

Though the children undoubtedly made an impression, the workers' case may have been aided by anxious chatter in Beijing over the country's growing wealth gap. A blue book on the country's urbanization released last week by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences noted that the divide between urban and rural incomes had widened 26% since 1997, with urban residents now making five times as much on average as their rural counterparts.

On Wednesday, state media quoted a report by the state-backed Center for Rural Studies as saying inequality in China was approaching 'danger' levels.

With developers feeling the squeeze from a tightening credit environment and curbs on speculation, Dali may not be the last place we see migrant children carrying protest signs on their parents' behalf.