[Source: Metro, April 14, 2010]
The long and the short of it is simple — this is the world’s only Dwarf Empire and if you’re above 1.5 metres, you’re not coming in.
But this land of little people in Kunming, in the Chinese province of Yunnan, where little people live in a sanctuary entirely separate from the average-sized world has become an unlikely tourist attraction.
Everyone at the settlement has their accommodation, healthcare and food taken care of in return for performing musicals and shows for average-sized visitors.
Their community, set on the Xishan mountain, in which they will allow you into their mushroom-roofed houses to make you cups of coffee and smoke shisha, is a trek up a windy, vertiginous road, but at the top the little people provide a giant welcome.
You can take in one of the spellbinding musicals in their ramshackle amphitheatre, where performances include ballet, Shaolin martial arts, breakdancing, traditional folk Chinese songs and a dwarf version of U.S. pop act the Pussycat Dolls.
The performances aren’t always note perfect, but the tiny showmen are hard to take your eyes off.
On arrival you will be greeted by around 100 people in fancy dress —belly dancers, Roman centurions, folk dancers, and dwarf men in top hats rush out to meet you through the mountain fog.
The community was set up by average-sized businessman Cheng Mingjing, a former electronics salesman who spent millions on building a butterfly park as well as the settlement.
The settlement is a haven for dwarves who have been abused in the wider world.
It even has its own parliament, which settles domestic disputes and promotes the regular activities outside the park, and their own national anthem which is sung before each performance.
No little person — regardless of musical talent — is turned away from the park, if they do not perform they are given maintenance catering, public relations or security roles.
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