A story worth writing about in the Shanghai Daily. Really?

Kids ape risky stunt seen on TV

by Xu Chi (May 26, 2010)

A GASP-inducing human castle performance staged by a Spanish artist group inspired a group of kids to try it themselves.

Fortunately, cops stopped the dangerous attempt in time.

Wusong frontier inspection police stopped six children under the age of 9 from forming a three-tier human castle on Monday morning on Mohe Road, Baoshan District, officials said yesterday.

Police said the children got the idea from watching the human pillars by Spanish artists on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall on Sunday via television.

Impressed and astonished by the performance, five pupils, aged 8 and 9, decided to work as a team and imitate the stunts.

One of them brought his 5-year-old brother, whose mission was to stand on the top of the human castle. As they saw on television, the castle often required a lighter kid to climb to the top.

The police said when they saw the kids’ human castle, the youngest was just climbing up on his brother’s shoulder to the second level.

Police said his face was turning ghastly white, eyes tightly closed and legs trembling from excitement and fear, while his big brother, sweating at the base, was shouting loudly to him, “Come on! Climb up higher!”

The other kids, three at the pyramid’s base and two on the second layer, were having a tough time holding on to each other, but all refused to give up even though their bodies were trembling.

Finally the police stopped the youngest kid from climbing up and, with the help of some other people, helped them to get back to the ground.

“We saw foreigners doing that on TV, and it didn’t seem to be that difficult,” said one of the kids.

The police said those kids had a passion for climbing trees after school, and were surprisingly good at it.

Read more: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=438166&type=Metro#ixzz0pBVAaKz0