At full stretch
Mainland dancer Huang Doudou endured extreme physical training by his parents to increase his height
At 36, Huang Doudou is today one of the most accomplished Chinese classical dancers on the mainland - a surprise, perhaps, given the Wenzhou native had not always wanted to pursue dance as a career, and was once considered not to have the right physique for it.
Encouraged by his art-loving parents who were members of workers' propaganda performance teams, Huang started dancing before his teens, even though his dream was to join the army or become a chef.
He failed the auditions for the high school of the Beijing Dance Academy twice, because the judges thought his legs were short. But instead of calling it a day, his determined father made him hang upside down every day after school, with both feet hooked to a pair of iron rings from the roof beam. This way, he hoped his son's legs could grow longer for the next audition.
The boy grew three centimetres in height in three months and was accepted to the Shanghai Dance School. "This was a very dangerous method without any scientific proof and I hope no parents try this on their kid today," says Huang, adding, to this day, he still questions the rigid enrolment requirements of dance schools throughout the country.
"[They] suggest that a child's body proportion predetermines whether he can become a great dancer or not later on," says Huang, who now stands at 1.7 metres.