Jiang Wenwen and Jiang Tingting

The price of beauty

One afternoon, in the summer of 1995, Wen and Ting began taking swimming classes at Chengdu amateur sports school. After that, they clarified their life goals. Ting humorously described the first swim as a nightmare.

"At that time, I was very thin. The first time, I didn't jump into the water by myself but was thrown in by my coach," she said excitedly. "I was thrown in so many times, I could not stand this horrible way of training, so I cried."

Soon, the delicate features and slim figures of the two girls drew the attention of Luo Xi's, a coach of the Sichuan water ballet team. He confidently declared that the two girls had an innate talent for water ballet. So he decided to train the two girls. Under his instruction, the girls quickly learned about water ballet. "We liked to dance ballet in the water and perform our best for the audience," they said. Their parents had wished for them to live normal lives but because they girls wanted to be beautiful, they had no choice but to allow the young girls to pursue their dream.