The King in the Mushroom House

The 88th Chance

Wang Lin is 28 years old and 1.28 meters tall.

She has submitted 87 resumes. Supermarket cashier—"The shelves are too high; you can't reach." Restaurant server—"You'll spill the plates." Company receptionist—"Your image doesn't meet requirements." After the 87th rejection, she saw a strange posting on a job website:

"Kunming World Butterfly Ecological Park is recruiting actors. Accommodation provided. Salary 3000-5000 RMB per month. Height requirement: below 1.3 meters."

She took an 8-hour train ride from the mountainous region of Guizhou to a mountain in Xishan District, Kunming. At the foot of the mountain stood a sign: "Lilliput Entrance."

She walked up and saw rows of mushroom-shaped houses with pink domes and white spots, like illustrations torn from a fairy tale book. At the door stood a person in a guard uniform, about her height. When he saw her, he didn't look down but met her eyes and said, "Welcome, are you new?"

That was the first time she didn't see the light of "that dwarf" in a stranger's eyes.

King, Guards, and Magician

This "Lilliput" has over 100 residents.

Every day at 9 AM, they put on costumes—king, queen, guards, magician, flower fairy—and perform in the castle square. The loudspeaker plays adapted fairy tale music with heavy drumbeats. Tourists come from all over the country, holding up phones to take photos. Some laugh, some are surprised, some whisper, "Isn't this like a zoo?"

The founder is Chen Mingjing. In 2009, he read a news story about a group of little people performing on the streets and being chased away by urban management officers. He recalled his own childhood experiences of being bullied for being short. "I wanted to give them a home," he said, "a place where they don't have to look up at people."

He spent three years building this mountain. All the doorknobs, stairs, faucets, and sinks are designed for a height of 1.2 meters. The dormitory rooms have signs like "King's Bedroom" and "Ministry of Foreign Affairs"—half joking, half serious.

23-year-old Liu Yuzhou plays the "king" here. He comes from a rural area in Sichuan, dropped out of middle school, and could only help his parents farm in his hometown. "Outside, kids chase me and shout 'little dwarf,' and adults stare at me like I'm an alien," he said. "Here, I'm the king. Tourists call me 'Your Majesty.' Which one makes me feel more human?"

He met his current girlfriend here, also an actor. They plan to get married in a mushroom house.

But Critics Say...

If the story ended here, it would be a perfect fairy tale. But it doesn't.

In 2016, a US-based support organization for dwarfism saw photos of Lilliput and publicly criticized: "How is this different from Victorian-era 'freak shows'? True respect means integrating them into normal society, not building an isolated 'zoo.'"

The criticism spread back to China. On social media, some people called Chen Mingjing a "consumer of the disabled," and others said, "This is a disgrace to the Chinese people."

I tried to contact several actors to ask their views.

"They say it's a zoo," Liu Yuzhou repeated the word, then laughed. "What is the outside society then? A jungle? At least here, my bed is made to my height, I don't need a ladder to use the toilet, and my colleagues don't take photos of me behind my back and post them online saying 'saw a weirdo today.'"

Another actor, Li Ting, who plays the "flower fairy," did the math for me: her subsistence allowance in her hometown county was less than 400 RMB per month. Here, she earns 3500 RMB per month, with room and board and medical insurance. "I know tourists laugh," she said, "but I also have savings in the bank. Which do you think is more real?"

Backstage

I asked to see "Lilliput" after the performances.

At 5 PM, the music stopped and the tourists left. The actors took off their costumes and changed into T-shirts and jeans. Some were washing clothes at the mushroom house entrance, some were scrolling through short videos on their phones, some were discussing what to eat for dinner—just like any group of young people in their 20s.

Liu Yuzhou took me into his "King's Bedroom." The room was small, but everything was just right: the bed height allowed him to sit down easily, the wardrobe hooks were within reach, and the bathroom mirror didn't require tiptoeing. On the wall was a poster of Tyrion Lannister from *Game of Thrones*—the most famous "little person" in the Western world.

"He's a dwarf and a king," Liu Yuzhou said, pointing to the poster. "But that's a TV show. Here, I'm a real king. At least from 3 to 5 PM."

He laughed. I laughed too. Then we both fell silent.

Because neither of us knew whether this was a beautiful answer or a helpless compromise.

No Answers, Only Questions

When I left Lilliput, Chen Mingjing walked me to the foot of the mountain. He was in his 60s, with gray hair. I asked him: If you could do it all over again, would you still build this place?

He thought for a long time and said, "I don't know. But I know that without this place, Wang Lin's 88th chance might not have existed at all."

This reminded me of something.

Before coming to Kunming, I was in a café in Beijing and saw a man in a wheelchair trying to enter. There were three steps at the entrance, no ramp. His friends carried him up. Throughout the process, everyone in the café watched, but no one seemed surprised—because such scenes are too common.

At that moment, I realized: We are all good at criticizing "others' solutions as imperfect," but rarely ask ourselves: What has my city done for those who are "not up to standard"?

Wang Lin and her friends, at least, have a house designed to their height, a job that doesn't require "meeting image requirements," and a community where people can look each other in the eye and say "Welcome."

This is not a perfect answer.

But it is an answer.