enissen@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

Near Kunming, Southern China there is a town where only dwarfs are allowed to live. True Fact.

China is getting stranger by the day. The country has now created a town in which everyone who lives there must be less than four feet and three inches tall. The residents of the province are required to perform daily skits pretending they are a part of some magical land. The town wasn’t created by a dwarf gathering his friends and family for a better life. Instead a business man, Chen Mingjing had the idea of creating a little person theme park in which citizens pay to watch dwarfs perform acts such as a comical version of Swan Lake and other “little” acts. The village is filled with tiny trees and Dr. Seuss type cottages which the dwarfs pretend to live in while the guests snap pictures and walk around the town.

At first, when I stumbled upon this random fact, I pictured munchkin land from The Wizard of Oz, with singing and frolicking little people everywhere. Only this time the image is real and in much larger proportions. The theme park employs over 100 dwarfs whom are paid a decent salary and provided free room and board. However, the little kingdom has gotten a lot of criticism. Is it a theme park or a human zoo? Just because they are shorter than the average person doesn’t make them something for citizens to gawk at. In the Victorian era, shows were performed by people considered to be freaks, or marvels of nature. These people were exploited for money. Critics of the new theme park believe the same situation is occurring here, and we should learn from our past mistakes of taking advantage of people.

However, in China finding a job for someone who is disabled can be quite the conquest. For most of the short statured employees of the kingdom they are grateful and excited to finally have a job opportunity. Most dwarfs would be unemployed and enduring the daily bullying and criticism that exists in a normal city in China. Before the theme park opened, many of the employees admitted to having considered suicide, yet now the dwarfs feel at home, and safe from the outside scrutiny. They enjoy being around people who share the same challenges, such as the height of a sink, or placement of a light switch on a wall. They have made friends in the village whereas some were too afraid to leave the house before they arrived in the town. In their minds, it’s not like they go around singing “It’s a Small World After All,” they just get up on stage and perform like any other actor or actress.

The dwarfs enjoy living in this theme park environment. Whether it is politically correct to pay money to watch them dance around on stage wearing pink tutus and silly costumes is still under debate upon by the critics and fans of the magical kingdom. Although we all watched Umpa Lumpas dance around and sing songs from the classic movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this situation is a little different. No pun intended.