By Franciso Little

  

A while ago a lady I met on a plane told me I was very lucky and must have been a really good person in a past life. I took the bait, and asked her why?

 

"Some Chinese believe that if you are tall in this life it means you are being rewarded for many acts of kindness you have done in the past and your life will be blessed," she said.

 

As a tall foreigner living in China, I generally tower over most people and often overhear or am given comments about my height. The comments are always complimentary. I guess I take my 1.9 meters for granted. Having been the same height since high school and with the people around me growing up usually as tall as I was, the world always seemed "elevated."

 

In China there is an increasing desire to be tall, despite people's genetic make-up and it's being taken to new heights. It's a desire driven by the sheer volume of people competing for partners, promotions and prime job openings, where any advantage is sought in order to get a foot in the door. And the recruiters behind those doors can afford to be picky. If you're short and you got through the door anyway, the word on the street is height means rapid advancement through the ranks. A Xinhua report recently said young professionals who hold the common belief that taller people have more opportunity for promotion are "desperate to climb up the ladder in the country's height-conscious society."

 

In the wake of voice operations to improve voice quality and cosmetic surgery to improve every facet of physical appearance, the height seekers are turning to an operation that extends the bones of patients using a practice first invented by Russia in the 19th century, and used initially to assist people with birth defects.

 

The surgery procedure is not for the feint hearted. The patient has their legs broken and then pinned together internally, while the legs are held in place by metal frames externally. Trussed up in a rack, the leg bones are then stretched daily to encourage new bone to grow between the breaks, which in turn leads to an increase in height. A doctor who performs the surgery said it could increase bone length by more than 15 percent. This seems like a drastic measure, not to mention the six-month recovery period.

 

There have even been adverts on Chinese TV for stretching machines, another rack like machine that you strap yourself into, and then crank hard to extend cartilage, which supposedly makes you taller. It's true and I'm not pulling your leg.

 

All this conjures up images of medieval days where racks were used as instruments of torture, and the thought of someone willingly going through all this pain for a few alleged centimeters is an indicator that wanting to become taller is serious business.

 

A Chinese friend of mine who spends his life scanning the jobs vacant columns and having interviews told me that height is often one of the criteria for the better positions. He said there are an increasing number of employers calling for women to be over 1.65 meters and men over 1.7 meters as part of the job requirements. The height nearly always has nothing to do with the type of work involved. It's all about image. In a country where the average height for both men and women is far lower than this, it's making the going tougher for job seekers.

 

Even in the marriage stakes Chinese women prefer their men taller, if online forums are to be believed, and men in turn seek taller women to avoid the risk of having short children.

 

For those who favor the rack there was bad news on November 4. Xinhua reported that the leg-stretching surgery for the image conscious had been banned by China's Health Ministry. The report said this method of height attainment has led to several cases of disfigurement following the surgery, which was being carried out by unauthorized clinics.

 

A Health Ministry circular said only hospitals that perform at least 400 orthopedic operations annually and offer post-surgery rehabilitation are now permitted to carry out this operation in future, and this on strictly medical grounds. Leg lengthening can no longer be used as cosmetic surgery. State media reported that profit-obsessed small clinics had been touting the rack-surgery to the mushrooming number of wealthy Chinese middle class in the bigger cities.

 

That pretty much puts paid to all those who had dreams of instant height. There are a few consolations for the vertically challenged however. In a country where public transport and travel is an essential part of life, try contorting a big frame into the kindergarten seats and spaces available on buses, trains, aircraft and taxis. It's excruciating and I often give jealous glances over at the Chinese comfortably reclining beside me. I guess no one is ever satisfied with what they've got, but I shouldn't complain. I have a good job, I'm healthy and I'm living in China. As the lady said, I must have done something right in a past life to be this lucky.

 

(Beijing Review, VOL.49 NO.48 NOV.30, 2006)