Pole position for culture

Skillful and determined artist resurrects daredevil Zhejiang water town spectacle, Yang Feiyue reports.

Tu Songgen recently took his audience's breath away at a historical folk celebration event in his hometown of Zhouquan in Tongxiang, a county-level city of Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province.

Dressed in a white folk costume, Tu pulled off various stunts on top of a bamboo pole easily more than 10 meters high in a boat on the river.

He climbed to the top of the pole, one end of which was fastened to the boat — the other end reaching into the sky — before he started to spin and twist his lithe body around it.