Okay…true story.
A few years ago I took my son to the Hamilton County fair here in Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m not a big county fair guy, but my dad thought it would be entertaining. And it was, despite having to repeatedly curb my dad’s instinct for taking my three-year-old son on the various deathtrap rides that littered the fairground (‘No, dad – he doesn’t want to go on the ferris wheel…seriously…’).
As we were getting prepared to leave, I saw a big trailer with the words ‘SEE THE WORLD’S SMALLEST MAN!’ emblazoned on the side. ‘Hrm’, says I. ‘This might be good for a laugh’. So I told my dad I was going to drop five bucks and see what that was all about. I was pretty damn sure what I was going to see was some wierd optical illusion or a hamfisted joke (‘THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS!’). So, with my expectation dial tuned to a suitably low level, I entered the trailer.
In the middle of the trailer was a box, about three feet on a side, standing on a small platform. It was open on two sides, the top and rear, so that one would have to walk all the way around to the other side to see what was in it. Feeling the beginnings of a David Lynch-ian tingle at the base of my spine I approached the box and saw…
…a 24-inch tall Indian guy sitting on a stool watching People’s Court. No shit.
Needless to say I was dumbfounded. I think I probably waved half-assedly and said ‘Hey’ or something. He turned to face me and grinned.
‘Pretty hot outside, huh?’
Grin.
”Uhm – okay, well…see you ’round…’
That fucked my day up pretty hard.
The point of all this – actually, I don’t know what the point of that story was. But when I read about the Kingdom of the Little People theme park in Kunming, China I was reminded of that dude sitting in the box watching television. On the one hand it seemed fairly cruel to make that guy sit in a box and watch T.V. all day while an endless parade of overweight hicks wandered in and out of his trailer, each of whom had paid a fiver to gawk. On the other hand, it’s not like he wasn’t being paid. I’m pretty sure they didn’t buy him from some uncrupulous dwarf-seller in Karachi. In all likelihood, this was a paying gig.
I still felt vaguely awful afterward, though…and I can’t imagine that visiting the Kingdom of the Little People would be any different.
Chen Mingjing’s entrepreneurial instincts vaulted him from a peasant upbringing to undreamed-of wealth, acquired in ventures ranging from making electric meters to investing in real estate. But when he was 44, the allure of making money for money’s sake began to wane. He wanted to run a business that accomplished some good.
And so last September, Mr. Chen did what any socially aware entrepreneur might do: He opened a theme park of dwarfs, charging tourists about $9 a head to watch dozens of dwarfs in pink tutus perform a slapstick version of “Swan Lake” along with other skits.
Mr. Chen has big plans for his Kingdom of the Little People. Imagine a $115 million universe in miniature, set amid 13,000 acres of rolling hills and peaceful lakes in southern China’s Yunnan Province, with tiny dogs, tiny fruit trees, a 230-foot-high performance hall that looks like the stump of a prehistoric tree and standard-size guest cabins.
You can read the rest of MSNBC’s piece on Chen’s ‘Kingdom’ here.
I saw a documentary on sideshow freaks once (there was a nice love story between the Alligator Man and the Ape Woman…she never shaved until after he died because he said he loved her just the way she was, aww) and they said the dissolution of sideshows was bad for them- they couldn't find work elsewhere. Honestly, I wouldn't mind being paid to watch judge shows all day. I do that anyway but I don't get paid for it. : )