Ma Yi is just 11 years old, but she sits in a popular urban bar seven nights a week.

She actually arrives about 6:00pm, carrying a bunch of about 60 roses. She gets them from a flower shop owner, her "manager" if you can call him that.

As the band plays this Saturday night, a nubile belly dancer entertains during the combo's breaks. There's a packed house and the Jack Daniel's is flowing. Businessmen at a table, all well-drunk by 9:00pm, are enchanted with the dancer, just as they were with the band's lead singer, a fashionable 20ish beauty.

They show their love with roses. And little Ma, not her real name, gets one yuan, about US$0.12 cents, for every rose she sells. Over the course of the night, the businessmen buy about a dozen blooms, and Ma delivers their love offerings to the dancer and singer to applause from the crowd.

Every so often, the little girl approaches tables of young lovers, making her sales pitch. You never know who will buy, she says.

Ma is a lost Chinese child, surviving in the shadows.

And she's not alone. An estimated 150,000 such children between the ages of 10 and 15 are adrift in this the world's most populous nation, having run away from home, been abandoned, or sold, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Li Liguo, vice minister of civil affairs, told reporters this week that the ministry believes about 105,000 boys and 45,000 girls, make their livings off their wits. They either collect junk, find niches such as washing cars, selling flowers or knick knacks, or face the perils of the streets by begging or doing whatever it takes for money or food.

Most of these children have had little schooling and don't know where else to turn, Li said.

Sadly, many kids fall through the cracks when it comes to social services or targeted programmes to help them, at least in comparison to services one would find in the US or most countries in the European Union.

But the situation with homelessness and lost children is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems facing China's youth - 367 million people under 18 - according to a national survey undertaken by the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Millions of the nation's kids are suffering from behaviourial problems, the statistics indicate, with about 20 per cent of middle and primary school children suffering from various problems ranging from unruliness, excessive drinking, teenage pregnancy and suicide.

The situation is becoming a central concern for Chinese leaders, with arrests of juveniles up 9.1 per cent last year, according to the procuratorate.

"Most young offenders are involved in thefts, robberies, kidnapping, blackmail and drug addiction and trafficking - many cases involve violence and some even involve rape and murder," said Bai Jingfu, vice minister of public security.

In March, officials unveiled new proposals in an attempt to raise "ideological and moral standards" among young people, with publicity, educational reforms and investment in young people's projects, the ministry said.

Primary and middle school students will be taught to value life, say no to drugs, with teachers centring their efforts on science and civilization. It promises efforts to correct behavioural problems among juveniles and to adopt changes to educational programmes, with new curricula, texts and teaching methods to reduce stress on kids.

But this is going on even as rural schools in China's most impoverished areas can barely afford basic necessities. It is difficult to do everything at once.

Authorities are nonetheless determined, saying they will give more attention to working with troubled children. It is work that has to be done for the good of society, for the future of the nation.

At the same time, efforts are under way to combat childhood homelessness. The government has already built 130 centers for such children throughout the nation to provide kids with basic life necessities, medical care and chances for education.

It can't come soon enough for lost children like Ma.

She simply drifts through life, happy when people at the bar by her Coca-cola and peanuts. She knows all the words to all the songs and sings along.

But she sees no money for her night's work at the bar. She's rewarded with meals of vegetables and rice, and sleeps on a mat on the floor in the back of a flower shop.

The next day, she awakes to do another day of flower selling. There's no promise of an education, no promising future but a smoke-filled bar and blaring rock music to pass the time as she waits for businessmen to get drunk enough to buy her flowers.

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