Twins festival: Double the pleasure, double the fun
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-12 05:52

Move over, the Olson sisters. Here come China's Double Twins, who have upped the ante of twindom.

Twin pairs: Ah Jian (L) and Ah Kang, with San Xiang (L) and Si Xiang in their arms.

The pop group, known as "Shuangzi," Double Twins in Chinese, consists of a pair of twin sisters married to a pair of twin brothers.

"I just sat next to Ah Jian and didn't realize he wasn't my husband until I held his hand," blushed Si Xiang, the younger sister, who is married to Ah Kang, the younger brother.

On October 1, the merriment will be multiplied 56 times when China launches its first national Twins Festival, when 56 pairs of twins will be featured and all twins throughout the country are welcome to participate.

Why 56?

The rationale is twofold: It'll be the 56th birthday of the People's Republic, and China has 56 ethnicities. Talk of doubling the celebration.

"We have been scouting for twins from all ethnicities around the country in the past month," revealed Xu Li, the producer of the festival. "You cannot imagine how difficult it is. By the 28th pair, we were stuck. Some of the ethnicities are very small in population and quite spread-out geographically."

Fortunately, they have now found twins from 54 ethnic minorities, plus the Han majority, including a pair of brothers of the Gaoshan ethnicity in Taiwan and twins born in Hong Kong and Macao. But they are still missing a duo from Luoba.

The festival is funded by Dongfangguomao, a shopping complex in Shanghai, which organized a regional twins festival in the city last year.

"Twins make up a small but absolutely normal part of our society," said Pei Changhong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. A unit of the academy is co-sponsoring the event. "And a big gathering of twins from different ethnicities will increase understanding and harmony for all Chinese."

"Double Twins" provides a perfect - albeit somewhat unusual - picture for that. San Xiang and Si Xiang, who hail from Hunan Province, are of the Dong ethnicity, and Ah Jian and Ah Kang are Han people from the neighbouring Hubei Province.

They got to know one another in 1998, when the brothers and sisters toured the same city but with different troupes.

"Actually, the brothers both had feelings for me and I was a little closer with the younger one," divulged San Xiang, the elder sister, half-jokingly. "But my mum insisted it would be too complicated if the elder sister married the younger brother. So, in the end, we were matched in the right order."

"We have separate ID cards," said the identical brothers, "but the public security guys cannot tell the pictures apart. And no, we haven't tried using each other's ID, but we're sure nobody would detect it if we did."

Not even their wives. "The comedy of mistaken identity happens all the time. Don't forget we live under one roof. We are one family as well as one work team," said Si Xiang, the younger sister.

Now imagine 56 pairs or even hundreds of pairs of identical twins under one roof. The possibility for classic comedy and high jinx is endless.

(China Daily 08/12/2005 page1)

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