Did anyone see Storyville last night about the Chinese children training to be acrobats?

[TinyGang]

Those poor children. I felt so sad for them

Ooh, someone that saw it!

Well the children were trained relentlessly and some looked terribly young.

It all looked so punishing, painful and awful, but they seemed to be sticking it out because they didn't have too many options open to them.

Some of it was so sad - lots of shouting and berating them although my goodness they were damn good acrobats at the end of it.

Quite a contrast to us all wondering on here whether our children are having happy childhoods all the time.

I guess much of it could be down to seeing another culture through western eyes. They were fed and cared for I suppose and seemed quite close to each other as they were living away from home.

Only saw a little bit but found it quite harrowing - lthe little girl acrobat falling and being sworn at

That little girl went through some awful stuff.

She had to stand against some gym wall-bars and swing her legs up over her head and touch the bar above her head and hold the postion about ten times. She was crying with the pain, but they just shouted at her She looked about 5/6.

I saw a few minutes and, like others, found it too difficult to watch. They had a poor child lying on their back and were bending his/her leg back so that it was straight and touching their nose IYSWIM.