It's a small world

Photo provided to Shanghai Star

His last girlfriend was taller than 165 cm, he says. She was a circus dancer in Jiangsu, where A Gang worked for 15 years in a "show bar." But she wasn't very good so the other girls used to laugh at her. They dated for six years.

He doesn't believe in true love anymore, he says. He dreams of saving up enough money to go home and open a small convenience store.

A Gang is only the second midget I have spoken to during three years in Shanghai. The first was dressed like an elf and clinging to a beaten-up karaoke machine as he begged for change outside my office last Christmas. He had a booming baritone voice.

Those with enough charm and moxie, like A Gang, can charge up to 20,000 yuan (US$3,240) an hour for private functions. He gets 7,000-8,000 yuan a month to work four nights a week at Cirque and recently had a cameo in the Chinese film Cainiao (The Rookie).

He earned double his monthly salary recently by playing a hyperactive midget in the back of a police car during one elaborate hoax for an unsuspecting foreigner, as part of a Punk'd-style farewell bash.

"I'm glad you chose A Gang to interview," says Jay Thomas, the bar manager at Cirque. "He's a bit of a rock star."

Contact the writer at

matthewhodges@chinadaily.com.cn

Bizarre job opportunities are proliferating for the vertically challenged despite the slowly turning tide of discrimination.

A dwarf empire-themed amusement park called Kingdom of the Little People was opened just outside Kunming in exotic Yunnan province in 2009.

It features around 100 midgets pretending to live in tiny mushroom houses and has a king who performs in a gold cape and drives a three-wheeled motorcycle.

The midgets also breakdance, practice qigong techniques and perform scenes from Swan Lake and various fairytales.

Although some quaff at the exploitative nature of such a business venture – putting it on par with midget boxing in Manila – others commend it for providing decent income and a wholesome community for those who work there.

Five years ago, the staff and cast were already better paid than Kunming?university graduates —?1,000 yuan ($147) per month plus free room and board.

According to the park's then-princess, a young lady from Harbin called Xiaoxiao, half of the park's occupants had considered suicide before signing contracts.

"It's really pretty good here," Lin Sen, a young man from Jiangxi who had been working there for several months, told local media shortly after it opened. "There isn't much for us to do in the outside world other than bar or promotional work, which is generally humiliating."

Some may argue it has never been more chic to be short.

From Bilbo Baggins and Peter Jackson's "LOTR" movies to Wee Man from Jackass, MiniMe and Tyrion Lannister, the much-loved Machiavellian dwarf from Game of Thrones (played by Emmy-award-winning actor Peter Dinklage), midgets have never been more in vogue.